He’s so unusual

Charlie Kaufman’s road to Anomalisa

Charlie Kaufman is the wizard of odd.

The former TV c omedy writer established the Hollywood ranking by conjuring up a series of quirky movie scripts that include the Oscar- honoured Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The 57-year-old continues the trippy trend as the writer and co- director of the stopmotion animated motion picture Anomalisa.

Indeed, the adult-oriented animation is more avantgarde than mainstream.

In the comedy- drama, a motivational speaker (voiced by actor David Thewlis) has an affair with one of his biggest fans ( Jennifer Jason Leigh) during a business trip to Cincinnati.

As usual, Kaufman’s dialogue is an ambivalent blend of humour and seriousness underscored by the eccentric stop- motion puppets who populate this world of the mundane.

Providing a spaced- out entertainment was not the writer’s goal, however.

“We tried to make the film honest and emotionally real,” says Kaufman with codirector Duke Johnson in Toronto recently.

Originally, the production was a stage play presented l i ke a radio drama with Thewlis and Leigh reading from scripts.

It was Dino Stamatopoulos (who knew Kaufman from their days as staff writers on The Dana Carvey Show) who suggested that colleague Johnson consider using the Kaufman play as the basis for an animated movie.

Initially, Kaufman and Johnson started the project with the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. Eventually, they organized some private funding but the complicated production proved to be draining and difficult to pull off.

More than three years later, the movie is complete, and both Kaufman and Johnson are pleased with the results of meshing the words and the images.

“We did everything together,” says Johnson of their directorial efforts.

“And I liked the stop motion,” Kaufman says. “I was definitely fascinated by it.”

He admits the puppets might be “a distancing device” but the presentation also allows the audience to become more involved in the story.

Hit or miss, Kaufman and Johnson are savouring their creative victory.

“Nobody was telling us what to do, and we started out on our own,” says Kaufman. “And I am very proud of (Anomalisa) and what we ended up with.”

Anomalisa is in theatres in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal now, and opens Jan. 22 in Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa, expanding to other Canadian markets Jan. 29

‘WE TRIED TO MAKE THE FILM HONEST’