The puppet master
Anomalisa is a provocative journey into the unusual mind of Kaufman
If you’ve ever been guilty of assuming that all animated movies are for children, this one will shake some sense into you. The latest screenplay from the warped/genius brain of Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich), features a very explicit sex scene, performed by two stop-motion puppets.
Anomalisa does have its share of chuckles, although most are either absurdist — a hotel-room phone with a bewildering variety of foodservice buttons — or dark, as when one character, voiced by Tom Noonan, proclaims an undying love for another, voiced by David Thewlis.
This is less of a spoiler than you might think, given that Thewlis plays customer-service expert/ motivational speaker Michael Stone, and Noonan provides the voice of every other character save one. Michael’s wife and child, the man next to him on a plane, a male taxi driver, a female bartender, the actors on the TV in Michael’s hotel room — all Noonan.
Michael has flown to Cincinnati to speak at a customer-service convention, but he is listless and easily distracted. After a boring chat on the phone with his wife, he impulsively rings Bella, an old flame he dumped more than a decade earlier. After their hotel-bar drink goes about as poorly as it could, he switches his fascination and infatuation to another woman, Lisa.
Lisa is in town for a convention. She speaks with the voice of Jennifer Jason Leigh and is apparently the only person who doesn’t sound like Noonan. Michael can’t figure out what’s different about her or why he’s so smitten.
Anomalisa, co-directed by Kaufman and animator Duke Johnson, is something of a love-it-or-hate-it affair. An appreciation of Kaufman’s dark view of human nature is a must.
There is so much going on in these animated characters’ lives — enough to let you sink into Kaufman’s world, enough even to make you fear you won’t be able to climb out again.