2010's Catch-Up: Anomalisa (4/17/2020)

Anomalisa is quite possibly one of the most brilliantly disguised horror films ever made. On its surface, it's a somber slice of life character study about a man grasping out for something amidst the emptiness of his life. But it goes a lot deeper than that. At its core, Anomalisa is filled with an existential horror that I haven't yet seen articulated this strongly in film before.

The film takes place over the course of a single span of about 24 hours, as the protagonist, a successful and acclaimed writer named Michael Stone, travels to Cincinatti to give a talk regarding customer service. Once there, he tries - and fails - to catch up with an old flame of his, buys a toy for his son, has a one night stand affair with a woman named Lisa, gives his talk and then returns home. On the surface, it seems simple enough, but because of the brilliant way Anomalisa is presented, these events become a window into the protagonists tortured and beaten soul.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of this film is its animation. Using life-like puppets and a stop motion animated style, immediately critiques of the film may praise it for its excellent use of the technique, or criticize its models for falling too often into uncanny valley. Both of these fail to strike at what really makes the use of animation in this film unique. It's not just a stylistic choice here; the protagonist seems almost aware of his nature as a puppet, and -in one particularly frightening sequence - even at one point sees his facial features malfunctioning in a mirror as he starts to attempt to remove a piece of his face.

Anyone who has had an extensive history with depression and mental illness can see the purpose of this style. Dissociation is a strong symptom of depression, and it can make the world seem just like it is in this film. Everything feels sort of unreal, like reality itself is just another show you're watching. The world loses clarity, people blend together, everything becomes an empty, uncanny version of its former self. The world Michael sees is one that is at first only somewhat uncanny, but the more you see of it the more nightmarish it is. Nearly everyone looks, talks and acts the same, every day is more of the same loneliness, the same meaninglessness, more of the same acts of reaching out in a desperate attempt to find something worth holding on to, all the while knowing that none of it will work because the real problem is you, or, rather yet, what's wrong inside you. Even when Michael does find something meaningful and beautiful to him, it quickly fades away into the meaningless backdrop, just another piece of beauty snatched away by his living hell.

I don't want to make the mistake of painting Michael as purely the victim here. He hurts a lot of people that he comes across, using them for his own benefit before chewing them up and spitting them out. He seems to be aware of this, and regretful, but that only adds to his self loathing. He's so detached from the world, from life and from other people that he can't even seem to comprehend them as people, and so the only person left is just himself in a cold sea of meaningless nothing. And the result is someone toxic, someone who can't form meaningful relationships because he can't see people for what they really are - only uncanny shapes in a featureless world.

Charlie Kaufman is the writer of one of my favorite films of all time (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and while this isn't quite up to par with that masterpiece, it's still another knock out of the park for him. With Anomalisa, he taps into the twisted reflection of the human experience, showing a man for whom the innately insubstantial nature of modern life has generated something truly horrible. He's a toxic and manipulative person, but also a tortured one who just wants something meaningful, and the script wisely treats it not as one or the other but both acting in a viscious cycle from which there can at times seem no escape, each amplifying each other until there's not much of anything left. And while Anomalisa doesn't look or feel like a horror movie at all, that's really the only thing left to describe this kind of hell; horror.

Check out my 2010's Catch-Up Score-card here!