Anomalisa

Writer-director Charlie Kaufman's Oscar-nominated stop-motion animated film for adults centers on middle-aged Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis), the acutely depressed author of the successful customer-service self-help book How May I Help You Help Them? Preparing to deliver a motivational speech in Cincinnati the next day, Michael checks into the posh Fregoli Hotel, dutifully calls his wife and son in Los Angeles, and tries to re-ignite an old flame for a drink. Significantly, everyone Michael speaks with—the flight attendant, taxi driver, desk clerk, bellhop, and family members—looks and sounds the same (all are voiced by Tom Noonan), often robotically repeating banal phrases. Wretchedly lonely and disillusioned, Michael encounters an insecure, impressionable young admirer named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a naïve bakery-sales rep who—after some apple mojitos—eagerly responds to his overtures in her own distinctive voice, warbling Cyndi Lauper's “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” “You're an anomaly,” he tells her after they share a long and explicit sex scene. Kaufman's story originated in 2005 as a “radio play” for composer Carter Burwell's Theater of New Ear at UCLA in Los Angeles. Incidentally, the name of the hotel references a rare psychiatric condition called the Fregoli delusion, in which a person sees the rest of the world as populated by multiple versions of one ominously malevolent individual. Absurdist and surreal, Anomalisa offers an interesting existential meditation on social isolation. Recommended. [Note: Blu-ray extras include the production featurettes “None of Them Are You: Crafting” (30 min.), “Intimacy in Miniature” (10 min.), and “The Sound of Unease” (6 min.), and bonus DVD and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a fine extras package for this Oscar-nominated animated gem.] (S. Granger)