Review: ‘Anomalisa’

In some ways, “Anomalisa” is a startling movie, with surprises and ideas that pop up along the way that can easily catch a person off guard, especially if they don’t know what they are getting themselves into at the outset. If all you know is that this movie is an animated film from the guy who wrote “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and also wrote and directed “Synecdoche, New York,” that’s enough, just see this thing as soon as you can, and then read about it afterwards. Let this story just unfold in front of you, because it does so in a very compelling way, and reading about it ahead of time would kind of spoil things.

“Anomalisa” takes place mostly during the course of a one-night stay at a hotel in Cincinnati, as Michael Stone (David Thewlis) is in town to speak at a conference centered on customer service. But from the opening scene on the incoming plane throughout the rest of the movie, people try to be nice and make small talk with Michael along the way but he’s very stand offish and just not having it, which makes every one of his social interactions awkward. He even fakes enthusiasm when talking to his annoying son on the telephone, obviously exasperated with the little demon child he has wrought upon the Earth.

Michael is at a tough time in his life, disenchanted and bored, all too aware of the mechanical nature of the world around him – he’s in what professionals would call “a rut.” He’s also hung up on Bella, a woman whom he left for his current wife, and who happens to live in Cincinnati. An attempt at some sort of reconciliation with her goes horribly wrong, and along with copious drinking, Michael sinks lower and lower. He screwed up his past and he’s in the course of screwing up the present and he can’t seem to stop it.

Making things worse is that everyone around him looks alike, they all have similar faces, and even more nightmarish, they all have the same voice. Whether it’s a little child or an older person, regardless of gender, each person he hears sounds like the Tooth Fairy from “Manhunter“ (Tom Noonan); the taxi driver, the waitress, the bellhop, they all sound alike. This sameness is unnerving and it wears him down. Until, as if in a dream, he hears a singular voice that sounds different, and he tracks down this person, and that is how he meets Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Lisa is at the same hotel to attend the convention at which Michael is expected to speak.

Lisa is in a similar emotional state, having gone a number of years without any sort of romantic relationship or physical intimacy, and she’s self deprecating to the point of sadness, as she refers to herself as dumb and ugly multiple times. She even hides a scar on the side of her face with her hair, but Michael loves the scar because it is different, she doesn’t look or sound like anyone else to him, in a literal sense, and he becomes infatuated with her immediately. Lisa is wary but eventually gives in and they spend the night together in his room.

Much of this movie plays out not exactly in real time but something like it. Michael checks in to his hotel and the entire interaction with the clerk plays out, and the bellhop guides Michael all the way to his room and there are no cutaways, the whole thing is presented to emphasize Michael’s social awkwardness at this point in his life, despite being a best selling author on the topic of customer service, which is really the business of relating to people. Michael orders room service and that becomes a tedious interaction for him to deal with. Despite being a stop motion animated movie, they took great pains to have this all play out as realistically and true to life as possible. It looks fake on the surface, especially since you can literally see the seams on their faces, but the story all feels real. Real emotions, fears, that wild feeling of falling in love with someone, the regret of seeing that love neglected, it is all here in this story of a chance meeting between two people desperate for something new in their lives. Each coming from different places but converging in the same emotional state of melancholy and loneliness. Two people sleepwalking through life until they bump into each other, waking them up, if even for just one night.

This could possibly be attributed to the uniqueness of the medium due to the rarity of its use, the animation of this film is often times quite gorgeous. The opening shot of a plane cutting through the clouds during sunset, a timelapse shot of Cincinnati seen through a motel window, the attention to detail in everything from the set design to the movement of the people and the environment with which they interact, even the way the camera moves through the locations and with the characters, it is all very impressive and wonderful to look at. The style of the movie is worth the price of admission alone, it just helps that it also has a compelling and interesting story of two people falling for each other over the course of one night.

This is a beautiful movie, one of the best of the year for sure, I would put it probably somewhere in my top five of this particular top ten list, so let it been put on the record and known henceforth that this is the case. This story is great, the animation is fantastic, and the work from David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan is pretty incredible stuff, so evocative and vulnerable and real. I am looking forward to revisiting this one for sure.