Director : Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman

Running time : 90 minutes.

Cast : David Thewlis – Michael.

Jennifer Jason Lee – Lisa.

Tom Noonan – Everyone else.

Charlie Kaufman’s script suits the stop frame animation as the solipsistic Michael plods around world weary in surroundings where everyone is voiced by just one man, even have the women.

Then Lisa falls into Michael’s world and is a ray of insecure light in his darkness. This may be animation but it’s certainly not for kids with it’s sprinkle of bad language and a sex scene. This is no Team America  joke movie though, instead it’s more in the style of The Fantastic Mr Fox with straight spoken dialogue and realistic human behaviour.

Once you start to not notice the puppetry, it becomes an oddly romantic love story of two people meeting and experiencing each other. What it lacks in twists and dramatic turns, it makes up for in its sheer artistry. Just like A Scanner Darkly, you walk away a little puzzled from what you just witnessed but glad that you did.

C Whitehouse

Anomalisa, Kaufman, Animation, review,