Anomalisa (2016) - Film Review

Starring: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Lee & Tom Noonan

Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman

Directed By: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson

Certificate: 15

 

How do I possibly go about introducing a film with a production process as interesting as Anomalisa's? Far removed from the Hollywood blockbuster scene, Anomalisa began life as a theatre play in 2005, before the idea eventually arose to adapt it into a short film. Initially funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign raising more than $400,000, additional funding was secured through Starburns Industries, which allowed the production team to expand Anomalisa from a forty-minute short film into feature length. After more than two years in production bringing the stop-motion animation to life, Anomalisa was finally released and was even nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. So does all the effort put into the film pay off?

 

Customer service expert Michael Stone travels to Cincinnati to promote his new book at a hotel convention. He is distant and removed from everyone else around him, perceiving everyone to have the exact same face and voice. That is until he meets a young, shy woman called Lisa. Michael becomes enamoured with Lisa's unique qualities, despite her constant belief that she is no-one special. Michael becomes so obsessed with Lisa that he even suggests they run away and start a new life together. However, Michael's own obsession may cause him to the lose the one unique thing in his life...

 

It's impossible for me to talk about a film like Anomalisa without spoiling practically every plot point it has to offer, so be aware that the rest of this review will contain numerous spoilers. With that out of the way, let's start by saying that I absolutely loved the film's central hook of almost every character Michael encounters having the exact same face and voice. It's a wonderful metaphor and it captures the desensitization and disconnection that we can easily start to feel towards the rest of the world. Even though I do my best to keep a positive outlook on life, I am human and I can't keep that up all the time. Whenever I go through down periods, things can become blurred enough that (metaphorically speaking) I can start to lose sight of the individual. Anomalisa also does a great job at capturing the mundane aspects of life, and especially in the first act we're subjected to long segments with little happening and some long, uncomfortable silences. Tom Noonan is also perfect as quite literally an everyman, providing the voice of everyone in the film besides Michael and Lisa, even women, children and even the music we hear through Michael's earphones too. His voice somehow finds the perfect balance between being humdrum, pleasant and insincere all at once.

 

You'd think from this that Anomalisa sounds quite cynical, and another one of those films that sets out to say to the audience - 'This is the world you live in, it sucks and it's your fault'. However, this is disproved by the time we reach the third act, where the film reveals its double-edged argument. In this third act, we begin to see Michael's own flaws and how his desensitization to the world is partly his own fault. For example, the romance between himself and Lisa, which at first may potentially appear to be quite sweet, really starts to look predatory once you strip away some of the context. It also starts to become poisoned by Michael's own intolerance. In Lisa, he found someone truly unique to him, yet he loses that in his attempts to control and change her, wanting her to stop her little habits such as the way she eats, the way she uses a fork etc. Through Michael's own desire for perfection and control, he loses the only unique and special person in his life. The situation we have seen him in throughout the film is self-inflicted, he makes his own enemies and the lack of interest he shows in anyone else is what condemns him.

 

Something that adds yet more layers to Anomalisa is the addition of a fair bit of dark humour. Amongst all the interesting themes and drama of the film, there are some darkly comedic undertones to pick apart as well. At no point is this better seen than in Michael's dream/nightmare sequence. There are just loads of gags to be found – Michael having to use the golf buggy to get across the manager's office, the little picture of George Bush in the office (with the exact same face as everyone else), and then when leaving the office, you see him trying to escape a room full of workers, one of which tells him “You can f*** me if you want Mr Stone”. The dream sequence is the only real part of the film that goes over-the-top, but effectively so. Nonetheless, there are still some darkly humorous moments to be found earlier as well, including Michael unintentionally witnessing someone in another window masturbating, or even him struggling to find and put his trousers on as he rushes out of the shower after hearing Lisa's distinctive voice. While hardly crucial to the plot, these comedic moments definitely add to the enjoyment of the film.

 

I'm amazed I've got this far into this review without passing comment on the animation, but needless to say it is some stunning work. As I mentioned earlier, Anomalisa was one of the films nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, alongside films such as Inside Out, Shaun The Sheep Movie and When Marnie Was There. When it comes to which of these was overall the best film, then for me it's a hands down win for Inside Out (it was after all my favourite film of 2015). However, in terms of the quality of animation, then it's Anomalisa that deserves the prize. The incredible set design and attention to detail in each frame is remarkable, and it reminds me of the amount of detail you can find in Aardman Animations' stop-motion Wallace & Gromit films. If anything, the animation enables you to see many of the details that you may easily have missed out on if it were live action. Anomalisa also manages to avoid falling into the uncanny valley of looking too human – quite an achievement considering the very life-like character models. Even some of the more adult moments, such as Michael and Lisa's sex scene, are done tastefully and rarely feel cheap or nasty.

 

When it comes to any issues with Anomalisa, there are only a couple of structural qualms that come to mind. At ninety minutes long, Anomalisa is hardly the longest film in the world, yet there does feel like there a couple of scenes that are only included to pad out the run time. About half an hour into the film, there's a scene where Michael leaves his hotel and visits a toy shop, in the hopes of finding a present for his young son. However, he's mistaken about it being a children's toy shop and it is in reality an adult toy shop. He becomes somewhat enamoured with a Japanese doll he finds there, but I'm still none the wiser as to what this scene or the Japanese doll actually adds to the film. It feels very unclear, and it's perhaps trying a bit too hard to sell itself as an adult animated film, whereas this scene could easily have been left on the cutting room floor. Even Michael's nightmare sequence, while thematically important and containing some great comedic moments, feels drawn out and longer than it arguably needed to be.

 

To conclude, Anomalisa certainly feels like a unique bit of cinema. It may end up being remembered mainly for its impeccable stop-motion animation, but there's a lot more than just the animation to enjoy here. Although it has a couple of structural issues, it has some engaging and complex themes, a wonderful streak of dark humour working alongside the character drama and three wonderful vocal performances to top it all off. It's a slow-burner, but it's an effective one, and while I can't imagine Anomalisa will be seen by that many viewers, it's definitely worth a watch if you're looking for something different.

 

 

Anomalisa

 

8/10