If there is any constant in Charlie Kaufman’s films, it’s his contrarian streak regarding moviemaking “rules.” In a Santa Barbara Film Fest panel years ago, Kaufman defended the idea of writing against all writing-school dictums. More than that, his movies seem indefensibly crazy. Imagine pitching Being John Malkovich or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to a studio head. Thank heaven Kaufman exists.
Anomalisa is a stop-action animated film based on a play Kaufman wrote for a dramatic-reading festival and is no exception to his Lord of Misrule Rule, though the story is exceptionally simple. A motivational speaker named Michael Stone flies into Cincinnati for a conference, tries unsuccessfully to hook up with an old girlfriend in the hotel where he’s staying, but then meets an unusually vulnerable girl named Lisa, whose voice offers him a rare thrill.
This being Kaufman, there are some surreal twists, including a dream sequence. But the main quirk offered ought to remain in surprise for the moviegoer. (It’s central to Stone’s narcissistic bent.) Of course, the most dramatic rule-breaking aspect is the story’s medium — the cartoon. Kaufman and codirector Duke Johnson not only decided to present the play as a labor-intensive stop-action animation but also allowed their puppets to be transparently constructed. Joints and face panels appear plain as if to underscore that this naturalistic tale is also totally artificial.