Anomalisa (2015)

[yourstruly]

If there is already a topic for this, apologies and please delete mine!

 

I just got back from this and I *loved* it. I think it's Kaufman's most direct and moving work since Eternal Sunshine. As much as people are praising Jennifer Jason Leigh for Hateful Eight (which I have yet to see) I would be surprised if she is better in that, because she is incredible (with just her voice!) in this one. I was also impressed by Tom Noonan, and was just wondering about how much work it must have been for him to voice all those characters (he is everyone who is not Leigh or David Thewlis).

 

I don't think it's as knock-your-lights out bleak and powerful as the closing scenes of Synecdoche New York (I am one of the tens of people who adore that movie) but it's way more consistent and has fewer wacky tangents than Kaufman's previous work. And the stop motion is interesting-you stop noticing the artifice of it very quickly and just go along with it.

 

Loved it, loved it, loved it.

[plurie]

I didn't love this (and I expected to). I've loved Kaufman's previous films, but it's the crazy stuff I like the best. The only part of this I liked was the nightmare (which was really good).

 

I was distracted by the cracks in the faces of the characters, so the animation didn't exactly work for me. The main character is just an asshole. And the conceit of having everyone besides the two main characters voiced by the same actor was also distracting until the very end when it kinda made sense. But the payoff wasn't worth the investment to me.

 

 

[sweetcookieface]

I really enjoyed this - one of the best movies I've seen this past year along with The Revenant and Sicario. I read some intriguing theories on IMDB afterwards that gave me a whole new level of appreciation for the film and made me want to see it again. One thing that's interesting given that it's stop motion animation is how intimate it was. There's the infamous sex scene, which was notable for me not just because of how graphic it was, but also how real it felt. Part of what made it uncomfortable was that it wasn't just sex; it started with flirting, then slowly built to kissing, whispering, moaning, foreplay, sex, climax, etc., all in real time - you even had mundane details like the characters adjusting their positions on the bed. It's something you rarely see in film.
 

 

As much as people are praising Jennifer Jason Leigh for Hateful Eight (which I have yet to see) I would be surprised if she is better in that, because she is incredible (with just her voice!) in this one.

 

Not only was JJL's voicework incredible, it was so against type! I never would have guessed that was JJL based on the voice, nor would I have thought of her as a good candidate to voice this particular character. JJL's known for darker roles, and her character in this movie was so sweet, awkward and bubbly. Go figure!