"Some boys take a beautiful girl,
and hide her away from the rest of the world..."

*SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW AS THIS WILL BE MORE OF A
DISORGANIZED DISCUSSION/ANALYSIS THAN REVIEW*

Another note about the film's ending: Lisa does not use the term "Anomalisa" in the final scene of the film, but rather says that she looked up "Anomarisa," in a Japanese-English dictionary and that it translates to Goddess in Heaven. Now, "Anomarisa" isn't the Japanese phrase for Goddess of Heaven, though the actual term is a rather similar sounding phrase (Ama Terasu) and the origin of this term makes sense in the context of the film's themes. Ama Terusu (or Amaterasu Omikami) is "the Great Goddess Spirit Shining in Heaven....…

So I rewatched Anomalisa, one of the top 5 films of that embarrassing “100 movies in one summer” video I did 2 years ago, and after an hour long discussion with the people I watched it with that ended in me deciding once again that CMBYN is insanely irresponsible, I’m coming to terms with the fact that this isn’t the “masterpiece” I made it out to be. What a long sentence!

It could be that I watched Synecdoche New York after seeing this (and FAMOUSLY was more blown away by that) or it could be me being forced to try and make sense of it to a room full of people who hated it, ultimately and unsurprisingly losing that debate.…

"In a dream, you came and held my hand;
our love was perfect in that sphere.
No, I never met you, my sweet dear.
And my friends, they say you don't exist.
But friends are cowards, full of fear,
afraid to look at what they missed."

**THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN
THEMATIC & SCENE-CONTENT SPOILERS**

The ending is the real gut punch because you've been living in Michael's own, disturbed world/mind for so long that you might forget to consider the effect his behavior might have on another individual also suffering from immense loneliness (but for entirely different reasons, his a result of mental scarring and hers possibly a result of being repressed by a world judgmental of physical disfigurements, a scar…

99/100

Anomalisa, co-directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson and written by Kaufman, opens its pleasures and pains like an expansive dollhouse. Just like Kaufman’s other efforts, it isn’t strictly focused on the roots of human troubles, but why these existential (and in this case, depressive) ruptures surface and where our characters will be led as a result. While Synecdoche, New York unfolded an expansive, even monumental narrative through various tangents and cascading events, ultimately leading to a distinct representation of its main theme, Anomalisa opens its interior of brutal truth and startling warmth to the audience. The beginning, while opening on a black screen with a gradual build of paranoiac conversations melding as one, eventually cuts to a serene…

Perhaps more simple than I originally believed upon release, but no less compelling. This was, at the time, my third favorite film of 2015, ahead of CAROL, AMY, FURY ROAD, and EX MACHINA, but behind THE HATEFUL EIGHT and MISTRESS AMERICA. The top two seemed to have their fingers on the pulse of a kind of frivolous but enchanting moment in time (I’d just left one job, started another; late stages of the Obama administration; mom wasn’t sick yet; I had my head way up my own ass about my future, even by my standards), while the films that were listed immediately behind it now seem prescient, essential, almost iconic documents of the moment. They’re all stories of outsize ambition…

First, a link to my most recent "analysis" of the film:
letterboxd.com/elihayes/film/anomalisa/4/

"Sometimes, there's no lesson.
That's a lesson in itself."

Enigmatic, extraordinarily minimalist & confined, yet broad in scope, existing in an alien, yet somehow- common location, a place both claustrophobic and infinite in its span.

Indeed, it is a film both colossally complex and at the same time minuscule... very, very minuscule; contained, restrained, the environment/edifice itself being the third primary character, the fish tank containing the pair of souls.

The screenplay is what perfects the sporadically shifting tone. The characters: idiosyncratic, flawed, likable and sometimes unlikable (but always in an enormously human way).

Above all else though, this was, for me, terrifying.
A dark comedy of the blackest…

I am all alone in this world, and my biggest fear is staying that way. If you saw me in person you would understand. I'm not the best sight for the eyes, and I'm grossly overweight. I have no faith in getting another chance with any girl again. I have an alarmingly unhealthy attachment to my ex; even though I know for a fact she'll never want to get back with me and if we were to get back together there's a strong chance I would get left out in the cold again, I still have a relentless urge to want to go out with her again. I can't just see her as a friend like we used to. Not…

The more I think about this movie the more I don’t like  it, so to the people who like this more than Inside Out... gotta disagree with you here and this ends my excellent animated films streak.

Kaufman seems to be quite hit or miss with me as while he has interesting themes about loneliness, misery, lack of deep connections and all that, they’re executed in a way that I just don’t vibe with at all. Once again, having a sad depressed lonely white man who meets an out-there woman in the lead role, but this time he’s completely insufferable. He’s narcissistic, full of himself and uses women until he’s over them  without any care with no form of commitment. I get…