Finding Meaning in the Monotony of Life

Michael Stone (David Thewlis) and Lisa Hasselman
(Jennifer Jason Leigh) in "Anomalisa"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Charlie Kaufman is an individual who has written movies that encourage audiences to use their brains when watching them.  As the writer of films such as “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Adaptation,” and “Being John Malkovich,” he has delivered films that are both complex and fascinating.  

He has now written the illuminating, funny, and emotional stop-motion animated film, “Anomalisa,” which he also co-directed with Duke Johnson.  With the exemplary work they have committed to this film, we are given one of the strangest and most beautiful movies of 2015.

Michael Stone (David Thewlis) is a middle-aged, self-help author who finds very little excitement in life and can barely connect with anyone.  During a one-night stay in a Cincinnati hotel at which he’s set to give a presentation at a customer-service conference, he meets Lisa Hesselman (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a timid young woman who plans to attend Michael’s talk.  As he gets to know her, Michael comes to realize Lisa could be the one to make him love life again.

The voice work from David Thewlis offers his character a sense loneliness and melancholy.  The way in which his character delivers his dialogue with a soft and somewhat cynical voice gives us an idea of how he’s someone who has grown weary of the dreariness he experiences everyday in the world, unable to find a lasting bond with any individual.  When he’s with Lisa, we hear a subtle spark of life return to his speech, a transition Thewlis’ voice captures beautifully as the film progresses.

Jennifer Jason Leigh offers magnetic voice work as Lisa and offers a wonderful blend of bashfulness and free-spiritedness to her character.  She’s a somewhat enigmatic individual, and her demeanor makes the viewer want to learn as much as they can about her.  Once she begins to open up to Michael, it’s as if she offers a whole other world of possibilities for him, and we’re aching to see where these two will end up.

Besides Thewlis and Leigh, the only other actor who is part of the cast is Tom Noonan, who provides the voices for the rest of the characters.  What this does is place the viewer in the position of Michael as he listens to those around him and perceives everyone as the same person (besides sounding alike, they also have identical faces), letting us experience the environment of uniformity that is constantly bringing him down.

The screenplay by Charlie Kaufman offers much to think about.  This is the type of movie where, once the credits being rolling, you just sit back in your chair and try to think about what you just watched.  It’s a film that will have you dissecting it in your head afterwards, and you will be surprised at the theories you conjure in your mind if you think about the film long enough.  With the use of characters that look and sound identical, drab colors, and occasionally low lighting, you are placed in Michael’s life and encounter the mundanity that has been plaguing him.  Although you may be rolling your eyes that this film sounds like another story of a middle-aged man having a midlife crisis, this film takes it in an unexpected direction that makes it worthy of a viewing.

Kaufman and Johnson bring us a film that has us think throughout its duration; not because the story is difficult to follow, but because they encourage the audience to work out the meaning behind Michael’s existential journey.  “Anomalisa” is the type of film in which you feel like you’re watching something truly unique, and it offers a tremendous payoff for patient viewers.  You may even come out of the film thinking about life a little differently.

Final grade: A