Anomalisa

I am a huge Charlie Kaufman fan, and was very excited to get the chance to see this film at the Denver Film Festival this week. However, this film was extremely disappointing. The plot was quite boring and the film really just seemed to be a character study of loneliness and mental health deterioration. It would have made a great short film, but it was entirely too long for such a low-quality plot. The ending left me extremely unsatisfied.

However, I did enjoy the animation, sound, and other technical aspects of the film. But I'd have to rate this 5 stars and place it next to down there next to Schenectady, New York as one of my least favorite Charlie Kaufman films. Apparently I prefer films he writes but does not direct. I'm ready for another Spike Jonze collaboration!

Every time I see a Charlie Kaufman film I'm reminded how fearless he is at examining the human condition and why I need to put a lot of time in between watching his movies.

In "Anomalisa," his Academy-Award nominated animated film, David Thewlis and especially Jennifer Jason Leigh do tremendous voice work as an emotionally ill minor celebrity and the shy, awkward woman with whom he enjoys a one-night stand while at a conference at which he is the speaker. The film is an examination of middle-aged male discontent and loneliness, a subject a younger version of me was always impatient with and which the 41-year-old version of me now finds hits uncomfortably close to home. Kaufman creates a sad character who has many unpleasant tendencies but isn't necessarily a completely unpleasant man, and allows us to see how this one night in the man's life and his approach to human relationships is a stand-in for his entire adult life and the driving force behind his depression.

As in his masterpiece, "Synecdoche, New York," Kaufman refuses to give in to the convention of happy, or at least hopeful, endings, and suggests that it is possible to live an entire life being utterly miserable if you don't possess the resources to do otherwise, a terrifying idea to anyone who has struggled with depression, anxiety, or even just prolonged bouts of general malaise. In so many Hollywood movies about unhappy people, the unhappy people just need the emotional connection to that one special person that shakes them out of their funk and changes everything around for them. One of the things I liked best about "Anomalisa" is its suggestion that, while those special people really do exist, happiness in any one person is something that has to come from inside and isn't going to be imposed on one by another. It isn't comfortable to think about the possibility of life being a long series of missed opportunities, but it feels honest.

Grade: A-

Caught this film at a last minute matinée at ArcLight Hollywood. It's a stop motion animated film about a British author, voiced by David Thewlis, coming to Cincinnati for one night for a conference and his time spent in a first class hotel.

At the beginning I was impatient with it, I thought it might be just a stop motion South Park episode, where all the voices are pretty much the same. Then when the character of Lisa came on the screen, it all changed for me. I got it, it clicked.

The film is so disarmingly simple in its beauty and elegance. The relationship between the two main characters really touches you. Plus I'd never thought I'd be moved by the singing of a particular well known 1980s pop song in the film.

The role of Lisa was a diamond in the rough character, a beautiful, flawed girl whose been wrongly ignored romantically and it just takes the right person to see how fantastic she really is. It made me think of the times I wished I'd had a Lisa in my life and the times I was fortunate enough to have one. Lisa was voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh in a performance that fooled me, I was so drawn into the character I had no idea it was her, I only saw Lisa as Lisa.

While not a perfect film, it won me over and works on many levels, the filmmakers, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, leave it largely up for the viewer to decide what the film is about. Is the lead character insane? Is he in Limbo, his own private Hell, is everyone a robot, wearing masks literally? Does he see oil painting beauty in someone one day and the next sees only cracks and flaws? Who can say?

One thing though, voice actor Tom Noonan, albeit talented, should never sing again, ever. Never again, Dollarhyde, never again.

Anomalisa, or as I call it, A Mona Lisa, is the same as the iconic painting that is its namesake, kind of a thing of flawed beauty.

This is a small film – by which I mean it's not a great one. This is, of course, in contrast to all the critical praise which has been heaped on it. The word "masterpiece" has featured in many reviews, but I can't agree. I'd stress that I'm a huge Charlie Kaufman fan and my anticipation on going to see the film was equally as big as my disappointment after I'd done so. So what's the problem? I think it's the smallness of the story;yes it's about alienation,yes it's clever, yes the sex scene is achingly real and uncomfortable, but this movie has only a few points to make – mostly about alienation and the "otherness" of people – and while it makes them well, they don't amount to a decent movie. Thinking about it afterwards – and puzzled by the praise it has received and disconcerted by my own disappointment – I realised that if this movie has been made with human actors it simply wouldn't get the same sort of critical acclaim, in fact, it would be deemed dull, dull, dull. The thing which lifts it out of the ordinary – but not into the extraordinary – is the fact that it's told via animation. I urge anyone who loves the movie to try and imagine sitting through the same script acted by real people – it would be achingly boring.

This is certainly one of the strangest animations I have ever seen and strange in a very good way. This is a Stop-Motion film about a man , Michael Stone , who while on a business trip , decides that his life is so dull and mundane that he needs to have a bit of fun whether it be with an ex girlfriend or an admirer of his work. The problem is Michael Stone doesn't do fun. He doesn't really know how to. In fact he's not a very nice man at all.

I loved this. The attention to detail is amazing. Not just the fascinating animation but the voices. Not until it starts to looks like he might have enjoyment do we hear a woman's voice. All other times it is voiced by the same man. That's the voices of women and children too and it highlights perfectly the rut he is stuck in. The sex scenes are very unnerving yet worryingly realistic . The film makers have got the facial expressions and even the tone of the voices perfectly and it's the little things that make this film so fascinating.

Recommended.