AVClub: Most Charlie Kaufman movies are tricky to write about because they’re too certifiably insane to summarize—just trying to explain what happens in Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, or Synecdoche, New York can exhaust a hefty word count. Anomalisa, by contrast, is relatively simple, at least in concept. But that concept, which originated in a play Kaufman wrote for composer Carter Burwell’s Theater Of The New Ear some years ago, is best experienced tabula rasa, allowing its disorienting strangeness to sneak up on you. The film’s marketing campaign has been kept deliberately, even studiously vague, and violating its air of mundane mystery would arguably be doing potential viewers a disservice. If you’re a Kaufman fan, you definitely want to see Anomalisa, and are hereby advised to put off reading anything more about it (including the paragraphs that follow) until you do. Only the certifiably damaged—meaning Kaufman agnostics and/or people who habitually read the last chapter of a book first—should forge ahead now.
FGE - Anomalisa is a picture that personifies the rational palette, allowing viewers access to the intricate qualities of the human condition. Quality which is often buried by the conveniences of modern life, Facebook and interpersonal politics. Anomalisa continues Kaufman’s legacy of forcing us to see the big picture.
CGM Writes: Good news folks, 2015 is finally over. Bad news folks, that means you’re going to have to suffer through a variety of “year in review” articles. In fact, you’re reading one right now. I’ll do my best to make it as painless as possible. This article will be all reverie! You see, I like movies. That’s why I’m a film critic! I know that most folks of my ilk tend to be a lil’ whiney and pissy about movies. You might even start to think that film critics hate them. But nope! We don’t. We just love em’ so much that we hate when they are bad. That sentence makes sense, right?
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At this point, Charlie Kaufman could almost be a sub-genre to himself, and Anomalisa is unmistakably his voice. However, it doesn’t feel like a retread or a fresh coat of paint on old ideas. His collaboration with Johnson, the stop-motion animation, and most importantly the heartbreaking characters and story make the themes feel new and immediate. Anomalisa is as effective and compelling as any of Kaufman’s movies. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait seven more years for his next film.
