Plot: Michael Stone is out of town to give a speech at a conference. He's desperate to find attachment to someone and he thinks he finds it with a woman he meets at his hotel.
Thoughts:
This is going to be a tough one to write. You see, I don't like how this one made me feel. I don't disagree with the movie, really. It ruined my night. I think that was the point.
I get why Anomalisa is being praised so much. It's a beautiful movie. That's not a surprise. It's a Charlie Kaufman script. He's one of the singular voices in modern cinema and I can absolutely see how this came from the mind of the man who made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind. He co-directed this with Duke Johnson who I mainly recognize for directing the Community episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas". That too makes sense.
It's a wonderfully simple movie. The majority of it takes place in a single night. Michael arrives in Cincinnati and everyone looks and sounds the same to him. This isn't a new development. I get the sense it has been like this as long as he remembers. The whole world, his whole life, is filled with the same encounters with the same people. His wife, his son, the ex-girlfriend he meets up with, they are all the same. Then he meets Lisa. She's different. She looks and sounds different than everyone else. He's infatuated with this. The movie continues to follow that relationship until it reaches the place it's destined to.
I was impressed by the details of the animation. The way a character leans on another or looks away from the gaze of another. There's a lot of the things that you expect from a live actor, but don't expect an animator to take the time to notice. The humor in the movie is very dry and never intended to make you laugh out loud. Everything is at a low boil but not tense.
I'm jumping around a lot. I apologize. I just don't know how much to get into here and how much is better suited to see in the movie.
Elephant in the Room: It sounds like you are talking around your opinion of it. There's a difference between thinking something is a good movie and liking the movie. I'm good never seeing this again. It's bleak. The things that it is trying to say are deep and complex and honest, but they are also things that I consider unhealthy for me to ponder for too long. I think it will affect some people in profound ways, both good and bad. For me, it's mostly bad.
Regarding more specific matters in the movie, Michael is a jerk. He's an unlikable character. That's not an opinion. You are meant to understand him, not like him. He's self-centered. That's pretty much the point of the movie. I don't pity him the way the movie wants to, and depending on how literal you think any of the movie is, the world is kinder to him than he deserves. I don't find the last scene at all earned.
Here's the Catch 22 of it all. I'll need to see this again to properly process it all, but I don't see a situation in which I'd watch this again.
To Sum Things Up:
Anomalisa is a deeply human movie. I'm continually impressed by Charlie Kaufman's work. I'm glad that he's making films like this. It examines corners of our existence that aren't comfortable. This will frustrate as many people as it devastates.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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