Anomalisa – Film Review V2.0 by Frank L.

Directed by Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman

The film begins with a babble of voices getting ever louder. There is then glimpsed a plane flying through clouds. The action switches to the interior. The passengers all look remarkably similar except one Michael Stone. These beings all have the same facial features; all are creatures of animation having been created from small doll-sized figures.  As is Michael Stone, who is flying to a customer service convention in Cincinnati to give a talk to a self-help conference, he being a revered author on the topic. Not only do all the other beings whom he encounters have the same features, they all have the same voice, namely that of Tom Noonan. Michael Stone however has the voice of David Thewlis which has a slight North of England lilt which makes his character strikingly different. He checks into the Fregoli Hotel (the fregoli syndrome is the delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person in disguise). He decides to make contact with a former girlfriend. They meet for a drink in the hotel bar; the meeting is not a success. He feels lost and lonely as many executives do when travelling to conventions wherever and stay in non-descript hotels. He ventures out in his loneliness onto the downtown streets of Cincinatti, has one or two “adventures” and returns to his hotel unharmed. He then encounters Lisa who has the voice of Jennifer Jason Leigh and a face of her own. She is from his milieu and is attending the conference. They help to dissipate each other’s loneliness.

The script is excellent. It early on engages with an initially stiff but ultimately funny interchange between Michael Stone and a fellow passenger who is nervous of flying. It never flags afterwards. He is so quintessentially normal with a wife and kid that being such a loner on this trip creates an uneasy dissonance. Kaufman has created in Michael Stone a universal solitary man in a world of apparent community. The combination of the voices of David Thewlis and Jennifer Jason Leigh, against the babble of Tom Noonan creates an intimate bond between Michael Stone and Lisa. In another sense it increases Michael Stones isolation. He is not part of the surrounding horde. Kaufman makes him into an empathetic anti-hero.

Kaufman sees the world from a unique angle and with the use of these doll-sized figures, he delves deep into the psyche of a “successful” man and his not so successful relationship with the rest of the world. The use of animation illustrates magnificently the inner solitude of Michael Stone’s existence. Johnson and Kaufman have directed this story with a simplicity that allows emotions to bubble up. Lisa and Michael Stone in their animated existence portray far more about the human condition than many human beings in reality seem capable…an extraordinary achievement by Johnson and Kaufman.