Review of Anomalisa (2015) by Stanley F — 19 Mar 2016

OK so this gets the 5 stars. But BE WARNED - this is NOT a flim that will fill you with bonhomie or tickle your entertainment taste-buds. This is a film that deserves your time. And probably a couple of re-watches. I've only seen it the once, but even on first sitting, it's clear that the film deals with serious questions intelligently and subtly.

And the question is that of identity - "Who am I and who are you?".

I suspect that most of us avoid the question, skirt around, play with and leave on the side of the plate for "later" - like the Brussel Sprouts that your mum insisted you tried when you were a kid. They ARE a delicious vegetable but until you have the palate to deal with it, it remains a trial that you would preferably leave alone and hurry on to the jam sponge.

Michael Stone is successful and admired but lost and depressed as a result of the same success and status. He instructs "every caller is an individual, with a history, a past " but to him all people have become the same - cleverly and unsettlingly portrayed by giving all the characters other than Michael the same voice. He has a minor breakdown in the upmarket hotel he is staying in and thus meets Lisa who to him is REAL, and uses his celebrity and status to woo her into his bed for the night. He seems sincere in his praise but the charm is wearing thin by the next morning and the cloud of ennui and fatalism reasserts itself over him and he slips back into the grip of his vice.

Cleverly voiced with a flat Northern English accent by David Thewlis, this is a sharp and critical look at our modern world through the lens of an age-old metaphysical question. The use of stop-motion dolls cleverly illustrates the subject matter of the masks that we wear through our lives and how addicted we become to them, even at the expense of our very true self.

I recommend it highly.