Review of Anomalisa (2015) by Elaine W — 24 Jan 2016

Spoiler ridden: I had high expectations from the trailers, but in the end I feel terribly let down. The film is a technical marvel of stop motion, miniaturization, with digital smoothing. That is the good news.

Then we get to the story. Michael is a depressed self-absorbed guy (voiced by David Thewlis) on a business trip is running from his family into his wall of ennui. At the root, Michael seems incapable of connecting with people and staying connected.

He abuses this with past and potential lovers, one of whom is Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh). That's it. He just turns out to be a depressed dirt bag and a cad. No twist, no epiphany, no climax, no anything.

Oh, and there is a "thing" where all the other voices are done by one guy. When the reason is revealed, we are supposed to be like, "Oh aren't you a clever filmmaker". Wrong! I am not saying that the story had to fix our protagonist depression, but they should at least have given us a good scenery chewing argument.

Put up a fight, so that we know someone cares, particularly those that pen the story. Another thing, it is really R-rated, but left me going,.."whaa?".