AnomalisaIt's possible to feel utterly alone, even when surrounded by people. It's possible to feel that nothing is real and everyone else is fake--a puppet, even--nothing but a cheap imitation of life, and that you're disenfranchised from the world. It's a very human response to life, even if it isn't something everyone experiences. Anomalisa is a stop-motion animated film about motivational speaker Michael Stone (David Thewlis) who experiences everyone else in the world as having the same face and same voice (that of Tom Noonan), except for a young woman staying in his hotel, coming to see him speak at a conference--a woman named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
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One of the inescapable feelings the audience will have watching the experimental Anomalisa is whether the film would still be a gripping drama about humanity and interpersonal relationships if it were not animated with puppets or if it did not present everyone but Michael and Lisa as being voiced by the mellow yet somewhat disquieting voice of Tom Noonan. These stylistic flourishes of writer and co-director, Charlie Kaufman--whose body of work also includes Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--are a metaphorical commentary on the deep, introspective recesses of human society--both of loneliness and self-absorption. They are the manifestations of Michael's psychological problems, evidence of how warped his perception of the world is. He's aware of it on a superficial level, but it's something he can't quite pin down, because he won't admit his faults to himself. Surely, we've all felt like Michael does at times--alone, no one to really talk to in a meaningful way, surrounded by ingratiating service-obsessed ciphers of people who spew banal small talk with manic enthusiasm. Or that we feel that our actions are scripted, and that we're all just marching to the beat of some drum we cannot control, shambling through our routines like marionettes. It's a detached feeling, a sense that you're somehow outside yourself, looking in on a world that is more a puppet theater than reality--so why not play it that way? This is how Anomalisa exaggerates Michael's state of mind, bringing the subtext to the surface, and making the metaphorical literal. A lot of the story of Anomalisa is trite by design; an older man experiencing a midlife crisis fails at reconnecting with an old flame on his tour stop in Cincinnati, and instead desperately plies for the attention of an unassuming woman who idolizes him, romancing her, leading to a one-night stand, ready to throw his old life away for a thrilling new adventure. What is more ironic, is how this artificial premise is depicted with convincing verisimilitude, and yet is staged in an unreal world. By depicting Michael and Lisa as identifiable and "real" people in a world that appears artificial, but appearing as superficial puppets instead of flesh and blood, Anomalisa gets to have its proverbial cake and eat it, too, constantly challenging our balance of sentimentality versus cynicism.
Anomalisa asks a lot of questions about human society, about how honest we are with one another, how we judge one another...what our motivations are for human companionship and how dishonesty inherently shows through in our behavior. Michael is lonely, and yet he doesn't seem to actually long for real companionship. From the angry letter he rereads to himself from his ex-girlfriend a decade earlier to the frigid way he speaks to his wife back in Los Angeles over the phone, Michael comes across as not just introverted, but anti-social. It's farcical that Michael has made his career out of fostering hallmarks of excellent customer service, which he espouses in presentations that he gives around the country; but the customer service folks he encounters at the hotel and the taxi ride over all seem a little too fake to be convincing, either trying to hard or not really paying attention. Little quirks like the concierge who keys in Michael's room info without ever taking his eyes off of him, or the kind of passive aggressive way the waitress brings him "another" martini when he invites Lisa and her friend down for drinks put us into Michael's mind, and we see the world through his sardonic, even nihilistic worldview. The time he spends with Lisa is a rare, golden moment, a romance which he believes must be special from the first moments he hears her voice--"different" than everyone else's--and that she must be "the one" he's been searching for. Their night together is as sweet and heartfelt as one could ever hope for from any kind of intimate encounter. He loves her voice because it is unique; more, it is unique to him. It is a metaphor for some other kind of elusive element that he believes he needs in order to find happiness in his life. She sings a rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", and she awkwardly shuffles into his advances. Lisa talks about her own unexciting love life, and describes herself as both a bit shy and someone who loves languages. She cites that she likes to think of herself as an anomaly--a word she drew from Michael's self-help book, which she confesses that she read with the aid of a dictionary--and combines the word into a portmanteau of her own name, hence the film's title. I believe the most shattering moment--like the cobwebs of self-deception being wiped away--comes when Michael and Lisa are eating breakfast in his room the morning after, and it becomes gradually clear that what Michael wants isn't truly Lisa, but the "image" of Lisa, manifested in her voice. Michael had this impression of Lisa as being this perfect woman, like the macabre "toy" of the robotic geisha he quizzically buys for his son, and when he realizes that she is a regular human being, his heart breaks--but Michael really is the only one to blame for it. Anomalisa is a deft film, a metaphor that implores us to see others as they truly are, more than just how we want to see them, through the artificial patina of commonality that we paint our mechanized view of a world that seems increasingly plain and uniform.
Recommended for: Fans of a deeply introspective drama with an experimental presentation for the medium, one that manages to make the surreal appearance of Anomalisa into something paradoxically grounded and very human.
Anomalisa asks a lot of questions about human society, about how honest we are with one another, how we judge one another...what our motivations are for human companionship and how dishonesty inherently shows through in our behavior. Michael is lonely, and yet he doesn't seem to actually long for real companionship. From the angry letter he rereads to himself from his ex-girlfriend a decade earlier to the frigid way he speaks to his wife back in Los Angeles over the phone, Michael comes across as not just introverted, but anti-social. It's farcical that Michael has made his career out of fostering hallmarks of excellent customer service, which he espouses in presentations that he gives around the country; but the customer service folks he encounters at the hotel and the taxi ride over all seem a little too fake to be convincing, either trying to hard or not really paying attention. Little quirks like the concierge who keys in Michael's room info without ever taking his eyes off of him, or the kind of passive aggressive way the waitress brings him "another" martini when he invites Lisa and her friend down for drinks put us into Michael's mind, and we see the world through his sardonic, even nihilistic worldview. The time he spends with Lisa is a rare, golden moment, a romance which he believes must be special from the first moments he hears her voice--"different" than everyone else's--and that she must be "the one" he's been searching for. Their night together is as sweet and heartfelt as one could ever hope for from any kind of intimate encounter. He loves her voice because it is unique; more, it is unique to him. It is a metaphor for some other kind of elusive element that he believes he needs in order to find happiness in his life. She sings a rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", and she awkwardly shuffles into his advances. Lisa talks about her own unexciting love life, and describes herself as both a bit shy and someone who loves languages. She cites that she likes to think of herself as an anomaly--a word she drew from Michael's self-help book, which she confesses that she read with the aid of a dictionary--and combines the word into a portmanteau of her own name, hence the film's title. I believe the most shattering moment--like the cobwebs of self-deception being wiped away--comes when Michael and Lisa are eating breakfast in his room the morning after, and it becomes gradually clear that what Michael wants isn't truly Lisa, but the "image" of Lisa, manifested in her voice. Michael had this impression of Lisa as being this perfect woman, like the macabre "toy" of the robotic geisha he quizzically buys for his son, and when he realizes that she is a regular human being, his heart breaks--but Michael really is the only one to blame for it. Anomalisa is a deft film, a metaphor that implores us to see others as they truly are, more than just how we want to see them, through the artificial patina of commonality that we paint our mechanized view of a world that seems increasingly plain and uniform.
Recommended for: Fans of a deeply introspective drama with an experimental presentation for the medium, one that manages to make the surreal appearance of Anomalisa into something paradoxically grounded and very human.