I should have figured Charlie Kaufman would prod at my psyche. I should have dodged his all-too-perceptive dramatisation of depression and anxiety. I've had someone trying to explain all this to me. What it feels like to be locked in this state. It is a hard thing to grasp from the outside.
But Kaufman knows how to get inside. And it is a scary place.
Creativity, identity and psychosis have long been his obsessions. Over the years these preoccupations have flourished in high concept, big-idea dramas. But where Being John Malkovich or Synecdoche, New York bloomed into grand cinematic Mandelbrots, Anomalisa stays intimate. It burrows in deep into the mind of an one man, Michael Stone, a travelling customer service guru voiced by David Thewlis.
Michael's life is ordinary. He has a wife. He has a child. He visits cities to spruik his brand of self help. But something is amiss and even through the elegance of Starburns Industries' stop motion animation, it is soon apparent that Michael's world is coming apart at the seams. For one, everyone looks the same. From the join across their eyes to the bottom of their chin they are facsimile. And they sound the same. His wife. His son. The bell hop. Even Dame Joan Sutherland's enchanting 'Lakme' is distorted into the omnipresent sound of actor Tom Noonan. But it is when a new and unfamiliar voice (that of Jennifer Jason Leigh) pierces through Michael's hotel room door that we realise how concretely this plays in his experience. Lisa, who he soon meets, becomes the object of his affection, projection and eventual frustration. Their connection is touching in its brevity and devastating in its annihilation of Michael's mental character.
If this all sounds too bleak for words, it is. Anomalisa is not without its humour but it is a humour very sensitive to its surroundings, which does little to lift the film out of its all-too-descriptive depression. It's difficult to sell a film so obviously bent on exploring the intricacies of mental illness. Yet, the fact that Kaufman and his co-director Duke Johnson use their chosen medium to its best advantage and that Kaufman's insightful screenplay (which originated as a sound play within Carter Burwell's 'Theatre of the New Ear', with this film's cast performing) does so well in communicating the mind's ability to oppress at the most personal level, should not be ignored.
Nor should it be underestimated. Anomalisa is effective enough to warrant a firm trigger warning. Be prepared for it to fuck with your head. When our screening was over we walked out to grab a coffee. I ordered a tortilla roll. They'd just sold out. I almost cried.
Not a good morning.
★★★★
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