Anomalisa

(RATING: ☆☆☆½ out of 5)

THIS FILM IS RECOMMENDED.

IN BRIEF: A serious treatise on loneliness that, while making some intriguing insights, does ramble on and on.

GRADE: B-

SYNOPSIS: On a business trip, a lonely man searches for love among the ruins of his ordinary life.

I begin this review with a quote from Immanuel Kant: "Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination". This sums up the film, Anomalisa very succinctly. The film is an imaginative journey into the mind of a sad man who has lost all reason, living in a world where everyone is uniformly the same, in voice and appearance.

Nominated for a 2015 Oscar for Best Animated Film (and finally receiving wider distribution nearly 4 months later), Charlie Kauffman's stop-motion film has an odd yet intoxicating allure. It is a character study of a lonely man content to live within his own illusions, with reality just outside his grasp.

David Thewlis voices the character of Michael Stone, a man unable to connect with others. Michael settles for his cloistered existence. His responsibilities to his family and his job ties him down. He is a successful author and keynote speaker, discussing self-help techniques to the masses without the ability to help himself in his private life. On a business trip, he meets various strangers (all voiced by Tom Noonan). A feeling of hopelessness overpowers him. But it isn't until he finally hears a different voice in the form of Lisa Hesselman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that he finally awakens to life and all of its wondrous possibilities. He nicknames her Anomalisa (a cross between an anomaly and Lisa herself). Their encounter becomes the crux of the film as MIchael's sanity slowly becomes unhinged, in the most literal sense.

Writer / director Charlie Kauffman creates a dreamlike film that is visually captivating but leaves many questions unanswered. (Sharing directing credit is also Duke Johnson.) With its deep philosophical bent, Mr. Kauffman's screenplay allows for too much intellectualizing and grand- standing of the human condition, interfering with the beauty of his simple tale.

The film is beautifully staged with wonderful detailed sets by the production team of John Joyce and Huy Vu and a haunting score by the reliable Carter Burwell that adds to the melancholia. The film's initial premise is intriguing, like experiencing a profound lecture or reading a compelling essay or poem, yet the level of satisfaction will differ with each viewer. Does one like metaphysical debates about the importance of life, happiness, and the general state of the human condition? Is it time well spent or wasted on thought-provoking meaningless observations? Is the glass half-empty, half-full, or not really there at all? Was I caught in a freshman class of Philosophy 101? (As you might tell, my feelings were decidedly mixed.)

While I enjoyed the film's animation and the atmospheric toll on the characters, this wisp of a plot edged on monotony, even though the film dealt with some provocative concepts. Technically, the stop-motion aspects are quite effective and achieve a graceful elegance. (Midway, the film takes on a more surreal quality which I personally found more compelling before it reverses itself once again.) But the overall script needed more risks into a wider range of bizarre and weird images that are capable within this animated genre. Instead, Kauffman and Co. settle for a tame strangeness as it trips over in its own wordiness and drawn-out ramblings.

No doubt this film is a labor of love and, on that, it should be commended. Anomalisa is the type of film project that one can greatly admire, but love never became part of the equation for this reviewer. Like the character of Michael, I just could not connect emotionally. I remained an avid observer and outsider throughout this movie-going experience, with true happiness just out of my grasp as well.

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This is certainly one of the strangest animations I have ever seen and strange in a very good way. This is a Stop-Motion film about a man , Michael Stone , who while on a business trip , decides that his life is so dull and mundane that he needs to have a bit of fun whether it be with an ex girlfriend or an admirer of his work. The problem is Michael Stone doesn't do fun. He doesn't really know how to. In fact he's not a very nice man at all.

I loved this. The attention to detail is amazing. Not just the fascinating animation but the voices. Not until it starts to looks like he might have enjoyment do we hear a woman's voice. All other times it is voiced by the same man. That's the voices of women and children too and it highlights perfectly the rut he is stuck in. The sex scenes are very unnerving yet worryingly realistic . The film makers have got the facial expressions and even the tone of the voices perfectly and it's the little things that make this film so fascinating.

Recommended.

Charlie Kaufman has always put together fantastic and thought-provoking movies so I naturally get excited before I'm about to watch one. Anomalisa is another fantastic addition to his body of work.

Anomalisa follows Michael, who is tired of the mundanity in his life but soon experiences something special after meeting a woman named Lisa.

Apart from Human Nature and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, I have seen every Kaufman film and loved every single one of them. Anomalisa is yet another film where Kaufman studies the human psyche and it's one of the best looking animated films I've seen. Since Kaufman doesn't have experience with stop motion, Duke Johnson came to help and the stop motion animation is visually striking. Despite being small in scale, the world of Anomalisa feels incredibly real. There are some impressive long takes where we follow characters into different rooms. Considering the challenges of stop motion, doing a long take is incredibly difficult so I have to praise the hard work put in by the animators because on a technical level this film is phenomenal.

This film isn't just style over substance because Charlie Kaufman adds so much depth and purpose to the characters and scenarios. This is a film that is sure to resonate with a lot of people. As of right now, I cannot relate to it as much but a few years down the line I may really connect with its themes. I love how interpretive Anomalisa is. It's not just a film you forget after finishing it. I still find myself thinking about the ending and other details. The voice acting is really good. David Thewlis does a terrific job as Michael and Jennifer Jason Leigh is absolutely fantastic as Lisa.

Anomalisa is another fantastic Kaufman film that's not only technically impressive but also humane and relatable. It's sad to see a talented writer like him struggle to fund his movies. I really hope he continues to write and direct more films as there is no writer like Charlie Kaufman.

Despite being critically acclaimed, 'Anomalisa' seems to have divided audiences. People were left mesmerised and touched by the film, while others were alienated and perplexed by it.

After seeing 'Anomalisa' for myself, it is not hard to see why it was acclaimed but at the same time it is not hard to see why it hasn't clicked with some people. Personally think that 'Anomalisa' could have been better, and it would from humble opinion would have worked better as a short film, but its many good points are so well executed that it hard to be too hard on it. Because the visuals, music and voice acting were as wonderful as they were, even if I didn't like the film it would not have gotten less than a 4 or 5.

The film apparently was originally intended to be a short film, and it does show because some of the film does feel over-stretched with padded scenes that try to disguise thin plotting (while the sex scene was intimate and touching, it was also drawn-out, somewhat too much so).

Some of the first act in particular does fail to maintain momentum, being very draggy and uneventful in places. For example, the scenes intensely detailing Michael leaving the airport, checking into the hotel and going to the room could have either been trimmed or omitted and it would not have harmed the story at all. The ending is one that is open to interpretation, don't mind these kind of endings but this one felt sudden and abrupt, the ambiguity suggestive of Kaufmann being unsure as how to end the film.

However, 'Anomalisa' looks absolutely amazing, the stop-motion style having such a beauty and realism to it as well as imaginative in its detail. When it comes to animated films this year, stylistically 'Anomalisa' definitely stands out when it comes to uniqueness. The music score is hypnotic and dream-like while also touchingly understated.

When it comes to the script there are some very thought-provoking and poetic moments, while the narratively-linear story achieves a fine balance of the distinctively-Kaufmann psychologically surreal (such as Michael reading the letter from an ex-lover and imagining her presence and Michael's dream, which was wonderfully strange), the painfully sad and the achingly humane. While some have said that they didn't get a lot out of 'Anomalisa', while not thematically original exactly the film does say a lot profound to me of the repetitiveness of relationships, it's the inside that counts and of the necessity of believing we and our loved ones are special.

The characters are neurotic (almost on the same level of the neurose-ridden characters in a Woody Allen film), especially Michael, but there was something about the touching chemistry between Michael and Lisa and their introvertedness (coming from a fairly introverted person myself) that appealed to me even if they were deliberately not the most likable in the world. The voice acting is hard to fault.

Jennifer Jason Leigh clearly put her heart and soul into Lisa and David Thewlis is similarly terrific. Meanwhile it was truly mesmerising as to how Tom Noonan voiced all the rest of the characters (essential to the point that the film made about sounding the same, or 'same voice', which would only have worked really with one voice doing them) and still managed to make them distinct from one another, not many people can do that.

Overall, a polarising film that will mesmerise viewers but alienate others. With me, it alienated at first and it would have worked better as a short film as intended originally but mostly found it very rewarding sticking with it. 7/10 Bethany Cox

"Anomalisa" is in my opinion one of this year's most important films. The film centres on Michael Stone, a depressed customer service guru who struggles to connect with others, finally meeting someone he can truly connect with - a woman named Lisa.

Anyone familiar with Kaufman's work knows that he has a tendency to write incredibly deep and complex stories embedded with a plethora of themes. "Anomalisa" might just be the one exception (or anomaly) to that fact. The story is surprisingly simple; most of it takes place over the course of 24 hours. The messages behind it, fortunately, will still require multiple viewings and further analysis in order to be fully grasped. The final synthesis is elegantly woven to near perfection and is at times humorous and even thrilling. Running at only 90 minutes, the film never feels slow nor bloated. I believe "Anomalisa" is a good starting point for those just starting to get into Kaufman's filmography.

The stop-motion animation is some of the best that I have ever seen on the big screen. For a project that was funded on Kickstarter, I have to say that the quality of the animation is the equivalent to what you would see in an Aardman Animations or Laika production - if not better. There were certain shots that made me stop and really appreciate the efforts that the team went through just to make all of their characters' movements flow realistically. Kudos to them!

The reasons why I think "Anomalisa" is one of this year's most important films not only have to do with the way the film was financed and produced, but that it also opens up a dialogue on isolation and social disillusionment - they are usually seen as flaws inherent only within the individual, despite the fact that everyone plays some part in furthering it.

"Anomalisa" is a true work of art on many levels. It is a simple story that touches on a wide range of emotions, riddled with the complexities of our perceptions on relationships. Do not be surprised if this film makes you laugh more than cry. Do not be surprised if this film makes you cry more than laugh - for that is the true beauty of this anomaly of a film.