Anomalisa

[wilder]

 



A fable about a motivational speaker seeking to transcend his monotonous existence

Directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
Written by Charlie Kaufman
Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan and David Thewlis
Release Date - December 30, 2015

[©brad]

Well I'm excited!

[jenkins]

©brad aren't you LA? AFI fest screenings:

ANOMALISA
Egyptian
November 10, 2015 8:00 PM

ANOMALISA
Chinese 1
November 11, 2015 12:45 PM

[Jeremy Blackman]

I believe he's still a New Yorker.

[Drenk]

Unfortunately, it should have stayed a radio play. It doesn't really work as a movie, even if there is a great scene where the puppets being puppets is a strong "device". It's the Kaufman script/movie I like the less, though.

(Don't make the mistake to watch the trailer; everything is inside it and it's such a small movie that knowing the images can ruin the experience.)

[modage]

I believe he's still a New Yorker.

Nope, he's an LA-er.

[©brad]

I believe he's still a New Yorker.

Nope, he's an LA-er.

I am indeed. And sadly I missed this.

[cronopio2]

the problem with this is that it's too god damned ... white.

Drenk beat me to it. this works well as radio. it's not a film.

by the middle of it i was shelving books  in my room instead of watching the screen and it even felt more compelling when i wasn't looking at the animation, which is nice to look at , but not justified enough...

[N]

I felt pretty cold and uncertain on this two days ago when I watched it. Now that its mulled over I absolutely love it. I wasn't aware of the radio play until coming to this thread, but it makes a lot of sense.

The film was good though, personally I don't think it was a waste of animation. I doubt I would have been exposed to it otherwise.

[Drenk]

So, now that I have digested the movie, I can say that I dislike it. Dislike might be strong. I just feel nothing...
The character has a psychological issue. He's numb. And I'm numb, too. With him. It might have been better to be about the woman he meets? It would have been another movie.

As a Charlie Kaufman fan I also want to say that I'm sad that, in 2015/2016, the only new script from him since 2008 has been written...in 2008...

[jenkins]

recently enough i rewatched Synechdoche, New York and typed about that, for example:

fundamentally speaking the viewer is asked to become tired of the movie, for the movie to be like the person.

which feeling of being trapped is a theme in the movie.

and simply, Caden isn't a wonderful person at all. he's oppressively egotistical

Caden is obsessed with thinking about himself within this world. he doesn't like how things look and can't make them right, though we see him try.

also:

i cannot believe Kaufman is promoting this life or perspective, because i do think there is another life one can choose to live over the miserable.

what is there to find in one's misery?

if he's not promoting it, he sure feels stuck on it. so either kaufman is bound to, 1 become an elderly depressive 2 became a person who conquers depression 3 commit suicide. based on art history, number three seems most likely, number two is my personal hope, so to me number one is still better than number three.

this has certain shared qualities with Rachel Sugar's line on Baskets, which was quoted by wilder:

One thing the show gets painfully right: the more sickening side effects of self-centered struggle.

a difference is Kaufman's recent characters have professional success, the world can sometimes see them as they see themselves, and the "paralyzing narcissism" is related to overall existential disillusionment. but to me it very much sounds like the same type of person from different perspectives.

it's difficult to describe the problem of one's worries being disproportionate to one's life. the topic's path is rocky by its nature. the topic's path is common, i think, which seems verifiable by Kaufman writing these and people going to see them.

spoilers
i fell asleep during the movie. i'm not sure for how long i slept, but i suspect it started when or directly after they were having breakfast together, and i think i awoke while a letter was being read while she was in the car w/friend, he was in his house, then the credits were rolling (is that how it ended?). i read the wikipedia synopsis, bummed i missed his presentation. was what happened an intensification of his earlier-mentioned problems? sounds like it. please let me know if there's a part in there that's operational toward a cohesive perspective on this movie, thanks.

[pete]

I like the film for the observations it made. for example, it can make a middle aged man showering feel very cinematic. also, I'm not sure about how all you studs fuck, but I feel like this is the most realistic depiction of stranger sex I've ever seen on film.

[jenkins]

there was laughter beforehand from the audience, but the first big laugh i heard was when he enters the hotel room's bathroom and kicks up the seat, so i know what you mean and agree with you about cinema from small moments. i'm agreeing with you. the behavioral methods of the fuck don't quite mirror my own, not because of studliness but because my interior wheels grind differently, but regardless i found the encounter highly realistic. i didn't feel like the two were acting in a script, which is first of all impressive because they're puppets or whatever, second of all i felt they were acting from certain personal desires. scenes containing character-based autotelic features i adore every time i encounter them, in this movie for example. specifically, although it's his movie, i felt then that they were each the main character in their own lives, which is of course how life happens.