A surface explanation of its plot makes Anomalisa sound like a very mundane movie. It’s about a rather ordinary guy named Michael (David Thewlis) who wrote a successful book about customer service getting flown to Cincinnati to speak at a sales conference. The first part of his trip sees him feeling isolated from everyone around him, then he tries and fails to connect with an old flame, and then he meets and finds a spark with an intriguing new stranger. That’s it. Boring, right? Not so, which makes sense once you factor in that the film was written and co-directed by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and that Michael and all of the rest of the characters are marionettes brought to life through stop-motion animation.
Creating a world of puppetry isn’t the only stylistic trick Kaufman and his co-director Duke Johnson have come up with for this one either. They’ve also made the decision to have Tom Noonan voice every other character Michael encounters, in the same monotone. Well, every other character except for Lisa, the intriguing conference-goer who sports the voice of Jennifer Jason Leigh. What this does is create a great filmic shorthand for that feeling depression causes where everyone around you turns into a faceless mass of humanity who you feel completely isolated from, as well as a shorthand for that electric feeling you get when you meet someone who finally stands out from the crowd and who you feel an instant connection to. Thus, with a couple of high-minded filmmaking risks (and the help of strong vocal performances from Thewlis and Leigh), our dynamic directing duo take a story that initially sounds ordinary and ends up making a movie that’s anything but.
Of course, if you’ve ever seen a Kaufman-penned movie, then you know that it’s not just the filmmaking choices that make Anomalisa stand out—there’s quite a bit of experimenting going on with the writing too. The first act goes so far in establishing Michael’s interactions with other people as being empty engagements full of small talk and little else that, even though they’re funny in that dark, subtle way that’s unique to Kaufman’s work, they become a bit of a slog to get through. If there’s any problem with the film, it’s that it feels like it takes a while to get going. Even that seems to be a purposeful choice though, as it has the effect that, once another character enters the film who also has a unique voice and a unique point of view, you experience it as just as much of a joyful break from monotony as Michael does (also, it allows for Kaufman to poke fun at Cincinnati for its reliance on chili and a zoo for tourism revenue).
The second act of the film, where Michael and Lisa enter into a flirtation, begins to play with the fact that we’re watching puppets while pushing the boundaries of just how much humanity we’re willing to project onto dolls. At first it’s surprising just how human and relatable these little marionettes can be (a scene involving a rendition of the Cyndi Lauper song ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ is one of the best of 2015), then things start to get a little weird (it turns out earnest puppet sex has the effect of making most audiences squirm), and eventually everything unravels in the sort of mind-bending and surreal way that you’d expect it to in a movie coming from this creator.
To give away any specifics about how things further develop for Michael at that point would be a shame, but it should be said that by the time Anomalisa is over it manages to explore not just our inability to connect on a human level with those around us, but also what a struggle it can be to identify and connect with the humanity in yourself. Anomalisa’s writing and filmmaking are able to make you feel things regarding depression, the fading of love, and the egoism that often tricks us into thinking we’re the only real person out there with thoughts and feelings that matter. By detailing the things that keep us apart, the film manages to shine a spotlight on the one thing that’s universal and that connects us all—our struggle to be less alone.
