Review of Anomalisa (2015) by Brett H — 30 Jan 2016

Anomalisa is a truly adult-oriented animated film in the strictest of sense with a deep psychological study of a depressed man living in a state out of reality that is by far the most mature use of stop-motion/puppeteering you'll ever see; you'll forget you're watching puppets.

Directed by the brilliant/warped mind of Charlie Kaufman, he crafts a story following a man named, Michael going on a business trip and the mundanity of life causes his mind to splinter and he then sees every person having the same plain face and voice; until he meets Lisa who is the only other person with a unique identity.

There are only three actors who voice the characters, Michael by David Thewlis, Lisa by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and LITERALLY every other character, male or female, is voiced in brilliant monotonous tones by Tom Noonan; all of them do a great job! This is an incredibly surreal film that can be interpreted in many different ways, and it'll surely be a conversation piece for those who have seen it, but it is also a fundamentally boring film as it focuses on the mechanical way we live our day-to-day lives and the first half is largely uneventful.

Once we meet Lisa, the film picks up, and after one of the most down-to-earth sex scenes (yes, with puppets, and not in the Team America way) the film shows its true colors and we get to experience the fractured mind of Michael.

It is very hard to explain why this film is so unique and amazing without laying your own eyes on it, but what I can tell you is that this is a tragic story conveyed with uses of symbolism, metaphors, and a deft touch of humanism that will be impossible to forget and forever analyzed.