The review was part of my very small coverage of the St. Louis International Film Festival. Anomalisa is so resoundingly powerful, but also intentionally slight that I can’t really decide if it’s perfect. The fact is the slightness of many of its aspects is meaningful, and creates a beautiful narrative throughline. But is that a bad thing? The whole thing seems intimate enough to be honest and frank with its audience, but thin enough for almost every human being to be able to find truth in it. Combine that with some excellent puppetry, and filmmaking techniques, and you get certainly one of the most interesting films of the year. Anomalisa focusses on a one night stand between an author that is starting to lose his mind, and a woman who he realizes is different. It features puppets having sex like humans. It’s a weird adventure written by Eternal Sunshine scribe Charlie Kaufman. If that doesn’t sound good to you stop reading. But if that does (and you’re one of the lucky ones) let me fill you in on this GREAT movie. It focusses on Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) an author who is starting to fall apart...oh and he’s a puppet. Anomalisa is stop motion animated. Now Michael is losing his mind. He’s surrounded by people who are the same as him (the “sameness” is implemented really cleverly and when I realized how I just about fell out of my seat), and just wants to get out of the dull, dreary, life that he is in. Then he meets Lisa, and “things” occur. That might be giving too much away I fear, but I really don’t care. I’d like to discuss the movie in it’s full to really get at what makes it such a great film, and that is the dialogue and meaning. Kaufman has always been one to hide meaning in weird experiences, and Anomalisa does this perfectly. Anomalisa is about how life will give you good days, and bad days. It’s about how even with people that you like, there are good and bad days. Days when you feel like not going on or giving up...and about facing that head on, and just saying screw it. This is a film I feel would be best observed by a young teenager (I’m 16...not a young teenager) because it contains this mentality. It’s an excellent teacher of the fact that there are no absolutes, and that’s ok. It’s important to know that. I’ve rattled on about meaning, but I forgot dialogue I suppose. Well, Kaufman’s ear for dialogue here is excellent. There’s a realism to these puppets, and the things that they say. These feel like real full blooded beating aching people because of the way that they talk, and go about their way. On that note the animation here is excellent, and while I realize why they used them (more hidden meaning stuff) it’s a film that feels like it could be done with just normal actors. It’s that well written and impressive. It’s too bad that the film’s approach to structure is similar to its underlying meaning. Since nothing in the writing is absolute then that means nothing about the film seems absolute. It’s wonderfully powerful, but is at an arm's length because nothing is for sure. That is certainly more realistic, and even beneficial because it allows for the film to become very much of a mass entertainment. For all its oddities any person could get something from this movie, and I challenge a person not to. Sure it sacrifices the rich narratives of Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind ( Because that’s an excuse to show off all the artsy films I’ve seen), but does so in order to reach a larger audience. That isn’t too much of a bad thing though. Anomalisa is still a near perfect experience about what it means to live, and what it means to have good and bad days. It’s the best thing I saw at SLIFF and I hope you check it out when it get’s a wide release. I give Anomalisa a 9.8 out of 10. REVIEW BY STEPHEN TRONICEK
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |