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Anomalisa

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Anomalisa
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Screenplay byCharlie Kaufman
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJoe Passarelli
Edited byGarret Elkins
Music byCarter Burwell
Production
companies
  • Starburns Industries
  • Snoot Films
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
Running time
90 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$8 million[2]
Box office$3.1 million[2]

Anomalisa is a 2015 American stop-motion comedy-drama film directed and produced by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, and written by Kaufman based on his 2005 play of the same name. It was released on December 30, 2015 by Paramount Pictures.[3] The film follows a lonely self-help author (voiced by David Thewlis) who perceives everyone as identical (Tom Noonan) until he meets a unique woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in a Cincinnati hotel.

Anomalisa was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, and five Annie Awards. It became the first animated film to win the Grand Jury Prize at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, after premiering at the Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2015.[4]

Plot

In 2005, customer service expert Michael Stone travels to Cincinnati, Ohio to promote his latest book at a convention in a hotel. He is distant from everyone around him, whom he perceives as identical white men with identical faces and voices, including his wife and son.

Michael practices his talk in his hotel room, but is haunted by the memory of an angry letter from his old flame, Bella, whom he abruptly left years ago. He arranges to meet her in the hotel bar; still angry, she is outraged by his invitation to his room and storms out. Going for a walk, Michael mistakes an adult toy store for a children's toy store and tries to buy something for his son, but is fascinated by a Japanese animatronic woman.

After taking a shower, Michael hears a female voice. He rushes from his room to find its owner: an insecure young woman named Lisa Hesselman attending Michael's talk with her friend. Enraptured by her unique appearance and voice, he invites both women for drinks at the bar. Afterwards, to Lisa's surprise, Michael invites her to his room. Despite her claims that she is not special, Michael finds her captivating, admiring the facial scar she conceals with her hair. He encourages her to sing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and tell him about her life. Declaring her an anomaly, he nicknames her "Anomalisa". They become intimate and have sex.

Michael has a nightmare in which his face falls apart and the identical people of the world pursue him, claiming they love him and that he and Lisa cannot be together. The dream inspires Michael to propose that he and Lisa run away and start a new life. She agrees, but her eating habits during breakfast annoy him, and her voice and face begin to transform into everyone else's. During his convention talk, he suffers a breakdown, confessing that he has no one to talk to and ranting about the American government, alienating the audience.

Michael returns to his Los Angeles home. He gives his son the Japanese animatronic woman as a gift, which nonplusses him. Michael's wife has arranged a surprise party, but he is unable to recognize any of the attendees, angering her. Michael sits alone on the stairs as the animatronic woman sings a traditional Japanese children's song.

Lisa writes a letter to Michael, saying she hopes they will meet again. Lisa's friend, sitting beside her in the car, has her own face.

Cast

Production

Kaufman wrote the original play under the pen name Francis Fregoli[5] (in reference to the Fregoli delusion) for Theater of the New Ear, a series put on by composer Carter Burwell made of what are described as "sound plays". Kaufman was initially opposed to turning the play into an animated film, saying that the play had "a disconnect between what’s being said on stage and what the audience is seeing – there’s Tom playing all these characters, there’s Jennifer and David having sex while they’re really just standing across the stage from each other and moaning. You’d lose that." The film was reinvented, although its script was "virtually the same" as that of the original play.[6]

The film raised its budget on Kickstarter so as to "produce this unique and beautiful film outside of the typical Hollywood studio system where we believe that you, the audience, would never be allowed to enjoy this brilliant work the way it was originally conceived." Pitched as a short film "approximately 40 minutes in length," 5,770 backers pledged $406,237 to help bring the project to life.[7] After the success of the Kickstarter initiative, additional funding was secured by the film's production company, Starburns Industries, and the film was expanded to a feature length.[8]

The puppets were created with the use of 3D printers,[9] with multiple copies of each character. 18 Michaels and six Lisas were created.[10] While Johnson was told that such realistic animation would be "disturbing and off-putting," he disagreed.[6] To that end, a goal of the film was for viewers to "forget they were looking at something animated and just get wrapped up in the scene," further explaining that "the challenge we felt with so much animated stuff is that you're always conscious of the animation, and we kept asking, 'What if we could escape that? What would it be like?'"[9]

The film was in production for more than two years, gathering only fractions of seconds of footage each day.[11] In some cases, Kaufman states that on average about twelve frames were shot a day.

Release

Anomalisa had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2015.[12] The film went onto screen at the Venice Film Festival on September 8, 2015.[13] and the Toronto International Film Festival on September 15, 2015.[14] Shortly after, it was announced Paramount Pictures had acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film.[15] The film was released in a limited release on December 30, 2015.[16] A wider release followed in January.[17]

Reception

Box office

As of February 29, 2016, Anomalisa has grossed $3.1 million worldwide, against a budget of $8 million.[2]

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes reports a 92% approval based on 193 reviews; the average rating is 8.4 out of 10. The site's consensus reads, "Anomalisa marks another brilliant and utterly distinctive highlight in Charlie Kaufman's filmography, and a thought-provoking treat for fans of introspective cinema."[18] The film also holds an 88/100 score on Metacritic based on 45 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[19]

Writing for Time Out and awarding the film five out of five stars, David Calhoun wrote, "It's what you imagine might have happened if Charlie Kaufman had got his hands on Up in the Air or Lost in Translation."[20] Drew McWeeny of Hitfix called it "the most shattering experiment yet from Charlie Kaufman" and graded it an "A+".[21] LA Weekly's Amy Nicholson gave the film an "A" and wrote, "Kaufman is taking our brains apart and showing us the gears."[22] Lauren Sarner of Inverse magazine states that despite "dipping into the Uncanny Valley effect with distractingly creepy visuals," it's still been generating great buzz.[23]

Stephanie Zacharek of TIME responded less positively, arguing, "Michael doesn’t recognize that every other human being is alone in his or her skin too. And once you start reckoning with Anomalisa’s obsession with self-absorption, the novelty of this one-man pity party begins to wear off. A little puppet pain goes a long way."[24]

Accolades

Award Category Recipient Result
Academy Awards Best Animated Feature Film Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Best Animated Feature Film Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
Golden Reel Awards[25] Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue & ADR in an Animation Feature Film Aaron Glacock, Christopher S. Aud, MPSE
Critics Choice Awards Best Animated Feature Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
Annie Awards Best Animated Feature Anomalisa
Best Directing in a Feature Production Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
Best Music in a Feature Production Carter Burwell
Best Voice Acting in a Feature Production Jennifer Jason Leigh
Best Editing in a Feature Production Garret Elkins
Austin Fantastic Fest Best Director Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman Won
Fantastic Features
Independent Spirit Award Best Feature Anomalisa Nominated
Best Director Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
Best Screenplay Charlie Kaufman
Best Supporting Female Jennifer Jason Leigh
Mill Valley Film Festival Audience Award Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson Won
Toronto Film Critics Best Animated Film Runner-up
Venice Film Festival Grand Special Jury Prize Won
Future Film Festival Digital Award
Golden Lion Nominated
Green Drop Award
Austin Film Critics Association Awards Best Film Anomalisa
Best Animated Film
Top 10 Best films 4th Place
Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards Best Depiction of Nudity, Sexuality, or Seduction David Thewlis and Jennifer Jason Leigh (tied with Carol) Won
Best Animated Film Anomalisa Nominated
Satellite Awards Best Animated or Mixed Media Film

Critics' top ten lists

According to Metacritic, Anomalisa was the seventh most acclaimed film of 2015, tied with 45 Years. The film was ranked in first place by five critics, second by nine critics, and somewhere else within the top 10 by 39 others.[26]

Soundtrack

Untitled

All tracks by Carter Burwell except when mentioned.

  1. "Overture"
  2. "Welcome to the Fregoli"
  3. "Cin Cin City"
  4. "Another Person"
  5. "None of Them Are You" - lyrics by Charlie Kaufman
  6. "Fregoli Elevator"
  7. "Lisa in His Room"
  8. "Anomalisa"
  9. "Cincinnati Sunrise"
  10. "My Name Is Lawrence Gill"
  11. "Breakfast with Lisa"
  12. "Michael's Speech"
  13. "Goddess of Heaven"
  14. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" – lyrics and music by Robert Hazard

References

  1. ^ "ANOMALISA (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 25 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Anomalisa (2015)". boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  3. ^ "Toronto: Paramount Buys Charlie Kaufman's 'Anomalisa'". Variety. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  4. ^ "Official Awards of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival". Venice Film Festival. 12 September 2015.
  5. ^ Lawless, Jill. "Charlie Kaufman wows Venice critics with inventive adult animation 'Anomalisa'". US News and World Report. Associated Press. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  6. ^ a b Rommey, Jonathan. "Charlie Kaufman on weirdness, failure and his new puppet noir". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  7. ^ "Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa". Kickstarter.
  8. ^ "Kickstart Update #39: Anomalisa Timeline". Kickstarter.
  9. ^ a b Zeitchik, Steven. "Charlie Kaufman breaks hiatus on own terms in 'Anomalisa' at Telluride". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  10. ^ Gray, Tim. "'Anomalisa': The Big Challenges of Re-Creating Life on a Small Scale". Variety. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  11. ^ Gray, Tim. "'Anomalisa': The Big Challenges of Re-Creating Life on a Small Scale". Variety. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  12. ^ Kohn, Eric (5 September 2015). "Telluride Review: Charlie Kaufman's Marvelously Strange 'Anomalisa' is An Animated Identity Crisis". Indiewire.com. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  13. ^ Rooney, David (5 September 2015). "'Anomalisa': Venice Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  14. ^ "Anomalisa". TIFF.NET. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  15. ^ Lang, Brent (16 September 2015). "Toronto: Paramount Buys Charlie Kaufman's 'Anomalisa'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  16. ^ Lang, Brent (16 September 2015). "Toronto: Paramount Buys Charlie Kaufman's 'Anomalisa'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  17. ^ "Anomalisa Website". Paramount Pictures.
  18. ^ "Anomalisa (2015)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  19. ^ "Anomalisa". Metacritic. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  20. ^ Calhoun, Dave (8 September 2015). "Anomalisa". Time Out. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  21. ^ McWeeny, Drew (18 September 2015). "Review: 'Anomalisa' is the most shattering experiment yet from Charlie Kaufman". HitFix. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  22. ^ Nicholson, Amy (15 September 2015). "Charlie Kaufman Has Directed His Second Masterpiece". LA Weekly. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  23. ^ "Charlie Kaufman's 'Anomalisa' trailer is a trip to uncanny valley". Inverse. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  24. ^ Zacharek, Stephanie (21 December 2015). "Review: In Anomalisa, Puppets Have Problems Too". TIME. Retrieved 8 February 2015. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  25. ^ "MOTION PICTURE SOUND EDITORS". Motion Picture Sound Editors. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  26. ^ "Film Critic Top 10 Lists – Best Movies of 2015". Metacritic. Retrieved 25 December 2015.
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