Movie Review: Anomalisa
For a film that, in many ways, embraces its own imperfections, Anomalisa (which enjoys a wide release this week) is nearly flawless in what it sets out to achieve: Using the under-utilized medium of stop-motion animation to tell a story more human than most live action films.
The film follows middle-aged customer service expert Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) who, after arriving in Cincinnati for a conference, checks into a classy hotel hoping for a quiet night of Belvedere martinis and casual infidelity. It becomes clear early on that Michael hears and, for the most part, sees everyone else (literally all voiced by Tom Noonan) in the same way. His voice is the only unique voice in the world. That is until he hears a woman with a beautifully unique voice in the hotel hallway and rushes to investigate. Here he finds Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh).
While it is a film that perhaps could have been told in live action, the decision to make it in the stop-motion animation style was absolutely the correct one. Not necessarily because it had to be stop-motion, but because of the little imperfections within the medium. For example, the fact that, rather than digitally covering up the cracks in the faces of the characters (like 2009’s Coraline), they decided to leave them in, daring the viewer to forget that it is an animated movie and that all of it has been created by people (something that is, as ridiculous as it sounds, not hard to do). However, despite the gorgeous animation, it is the voice-work that makes Anomalisa such a memorable experience.
Writer/Director Charlie Kaufman originally wrote Anomalisa as a staged radio play that was performed in front of live audiences in 2005, featuring the same three-person cast, along with foley artists providing sound effects. Years later, when one of the film’s producers (and veteran comedy writer) Dino Stamatopoulos and co-director Duke Johnson were looking for a feature film to collaborate on at animation company Starburns Industries, Kaufman’s Anomalisa became the obvious choice.
A decade after the stage show, the dialogue is almost exactly the same which, combined with the fact that the original cast have all grown tremendously as actors, makes for one of the best acted films of the year, despite the fact that it is animated. (But that seems like an unnecessary disclaimer, doesn’t it?) The voices are absolutely at the heart of Anomalisa, as they serve to represent everything from the characters’ personality to the very concept of love. Thewlis, Leigh, and Noonan are given the seemingly impossible task of representing, in a way, the entire human race and they somehow succeed wildly. Thewlis’ unmistakable high-pitched English accent and Leigh’s warm, friendly voice are worlds away from Noonan’s neutral yet distinct take on every other character.
The ingenious decision to turn the staged radio play into a stop-motion animated feature should and could have allowed Kaufman’s more surreal tendencies to shine, in an explosion of creativity, unburdened by the obstacle of real life. While the film does briefly explore these more surreal elements, it ultimately decides to keep the story grounded, delivering a decidedly human, yet admittedly lacking finished product. While Anomalisa is an obvious standout for 2015, it could have been the year’s absolute best.
Rocco Tenaglia
