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    Anomalisa

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    I hope you get to see “Anomalisa” and enjoy it as much as I did. It’s a film that I didn’t really know what to make of initially, but then something clicked. As soon as I started telling other people about it, the thoughts, the emotions, and the praises began to flow without cessation. Stop-motion features are always visually striking but you’ve never seen anything like this Charlie Kaufman film.

    In 2005, customer service expert Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) stays for overnight at a hotel for business. To Michael, everyone is a generic human being. Everybody has the same generic face and bland, emotionless voice. Then he suddenly meets a woman who stands out. Jennifer Jason Lee voices the woman, Lisa. Everybody else is voiced by Tom Noonan.

    This is a weird movie, but I don’t think it’s unusual just for weirdness’ sake. It’s not so much about the plot as what you draw from it. I know that sounds pretentious, but hear me out. For a large chunk of its running time, “Anomalisa” reminded me of “Boyhood” in the sense that the movie unfolds at its own pace and doesn’t conform. Our protagonist is an ordinary guy who is bored with the people around him. Everyone’s delivering small talk that you know they’ve vomited out regardless of who they’re speaking to hundreds of times. It’s just there to be polite and when you’re tired, polite isn’t good enough. You feel the exhaustion Michael feels as he’s told over and over that he’s a valued customer, that the weather is nice, that ice is available around the corner. It’s a lot of mundane stuff, but it’s refreshing to see and in a bizarre way, very funny. Watch any random movie and you know what never happens? Everyday stuff. People in films never go to the bathroom, stub their toes or get itchy unless it’s a critical plot point. This movie feels real… and then at the same time it doesn’t. I laughed often at the absurdity of it all, but I’m not sure absurd is the right word for it.

    What do I make of the fact that everyone in “Anomalisa” looks the same except for the exceptions noted earlier? Let me tell ya. They have faces, but as far as our melancholic hero is concerned, there’s no point in paying attention or remembering what they look like, so it’s as if he’s blocked out who they are and replaced them with these generic avatars. The way I interpret this artistic choice is that if you look at strangers, you just get a glimpse of who they are. When I’m standing in line at the concession of the movie theater, I don’t know what the girl at the counter’s name is. I know it isn’t true, but she might as well stop existing the second she leaves my sight because her life won’t have any impact on mine beyond our brief interaction. If you don’t care about even that, then what are other people, except for a bunch of puppets all lumped into a folder called “others”. With that in mind, what does it tell you that in a sea of generics, there’s one person that stands out? Is it love at first sight? Does this woman, Lisa, have that mythical glow that we attribute to “the one”? Is she a kindred spirit that will reinvigorate our hero and make him turn his life around? Perhaps she’s just another lonely soul and she and Michael are the abnormal ones.

    While you’re mulling over that thought and deciding whether or not I’m just interpreting this wrong (after all, the film does allude to the fact that there “might not be a lesson, and that’s a lesson in itself”) I want to examine the visuals. This is an animated film but it’s not for children and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The characters, for one, are not stylized. They’ve been 3D printed to be the exact likeness of real people. The seams that show you how the eyes blink and the mouths move are still there but somehow because of the hypnotic realism of the story and the look of it, you forget that you’re watching an animated film… and yet you don’t. I can’t explain it any more than that. It’s fascinating. I think it adds to the truth that this bizarre film is delivering that you don’t focus on the “actors” playing the parts and you also don’t focus on the visual style used to bring the story to life.

    There’s great cinematography present. The miniatures, models, and characters look incredible. I love the turns this story takes and how it’s just so unusual. It’s a challenging film that I feel like I’ll experience completely differently the second time around. I look forward to discuss with others because I feel like there’s a whole rainbow of points you can gather from this narrative. “Anomalisa” was nominated for “Best Animated Feature” at the Academy Awards and it deserved that nomination. It pushes the boundaries of storytelling. (Theatrical version on the big screen, April 30, 2016)

    10
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    adamwatchesmovies@  2.5.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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