Review of Anomalisa (2015) by Dan A — 21 Mar 2016

I loved almost everything about this. I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come.

It's a really strong character driven film, and you don't really figure much out about these people until the end of the story, especially the protagonist. You're always learning new things, seeing his personality from different perspectives, and as a result your opinion of him changes constantly. Do you feel sorry for him? Or is he a massive dick? I still can't decide conclusively.

By the way, this is an animated film and it's absolutely gorgeous in every way. How they managed to make these characters so expressive and life-like using stop motion animation is beyond me. After a while I didn't see models, I saw people. You honestly forget you're watching puppets after a while.

The entire movie is set in a hotel. I love hotels, I don't quite know why. I also love airports. I'm a weird person. My point is, the setting and aesthetics really appealed to me in a great many ways, however I'm fully aware that other people may find the film to be a little claustrophobic. For me, it worked effortlessly.

The film strikes a careful balance between misery and humour. As with most of Charlie Kaufman's work, you shouldn't expect anything else. While some people may be left feeling down and empty by the subject matter, I was the complete opposite. There's more than enough subtle and understated humour here to even up the more depressive aspects. It worked perfectly in my opinion.

By the way, there's a graphic puppet sex scene in this too, so you know, I don't need to sell it anymore after saying that.

Overall; this was exactly what I wanted to experience from a new Charlie Kaufman project. It has depth, but also a lot of comedy. It is made in such a unique and beautiful way in regards to the animation, and the film stays with you. Brilliant.