Anomalisa

Paramount Pictures

                I’m going to start this by saying something rather inflammatory: Anomalisa should have won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature over Inside Out. There, it’s been said, it cannot be unsaid. Let’s move on. So, what makes this film, which has a rather pedestrian plot in comparison to a film about the complexities of childhood emotions, better? Well, for starters it’s a freaking masterpiece. Not only does this film cover a real disorder, called the Fregoli delusion, but the story captures the anticipation and antipathy of new love: how it can lead to something new, or is the conclusion of our delusional and hyperbolic belief that the grass is greener on the other side. Simple and yet astonishingly complex in execution, genius filmmaker Charlie Kaufman (and co-director Duke Johnson) have blown my mind and created a one of a kind masterpiece.

            Again, the story is a simple one: Man is drifting away from wife and child, man wants something new, man recognizes someone new, man tries to see where it goes, and it bites him in the ass. Again, this story is framed by the condition Fregoli delusion, which is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise. The entire film is stop-motion animated with puppets, and while there are many characters, there’s only a voice cast of three people: David Thewlis as Michael, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lisa, and Tom Noonan as literally everyone else. If you know Noonan’s work (he’s worked with Kaufman before) picture an army of identical faces all voiced in his concise monotone. Crazy right?

            Choice and identity are extremely important aspects of the story, and their inclusion asks the question, “Are we ever sure when we choose our partners?” More importantly, are we ever sure what we want or who we are in front of other people? While the film doesn’t ask that latter question it is a consequence of a larger discussion on surety and identity, and this film is rife with existential questions on that matter. Kaufman already asked a multitude of questions about the complexities of time, personal authorship of life events, and the issues of adaptation in previous works, but here he boils down big ideas with simple and astounding execution. If you haven’t seen his other works as well, you’re missing out on some seriously weird, intricately morose, and provocative work that could honestly change your life.