Anomalisa

ANOMALISA (Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, 2015)

To Michael Stone (David Thewlis) everyone looks virtually the same, save for different hairstyles and clothes. More maddeningly, they all sound the same. In the stop-motion animated drama ANOMALISA Michael flies from Los Angeles to Cincinnati to give a presentation about customer service. After making an obligatory call home to his wife and son, Michael arranges to meet an old flame for drinks. She still resents how he left her without a satisfactory answer about their relationship’s end eleven years ago, and Michael doesn’t handle their reunion very well either.

Depressed and lonely he returns to his hotel room when he hears Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her friend in the hallway. They’re in town from Akron to attend Michael’s seminar and are thrilled that he shows interest in them when he knocks on their door. MIchael is really only fascinated with Lisa, who sounds unlike everyone else (Tom Noonan). When he’s able to get her alone and listen to her speak and sing, it’s as though all of his problems have vanished.

The puppets used in ANOMALISA are startlingly life-like yet somehow off in a manner that unsettles. Seams that permit animators to change face plates have not been digitally erased, which emphasize the sentient android quality to the characters. The uniformity of all but Michael and Lisa manifests the psychological horror in the protagonist’s predicament and his potential salvation in finding an anomaly. Something this dour and emotionally naked is unusual for an animated feature, yet in this medium the eerie unreality to the detailed mundanity help to keep it from becoming too uncomfortable to watch versus if it were physically performed by actors. Having originally been staged for the ears rather than the eyes, animation proves to be an inspired way to adapt Charlie Kaufman’s theatrical work with a greater visual element.

The inability to escape oneself or find total relief in someone else runs through Kaufman’s work as a screenwriter, as in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, and writer-director of SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. With ANOMALISA co-director Duke Johnson, Kaufman creates a world in which ordinariness and familiarity suffocate yet are the natural state of things. Michael is an insufferable person, at times more than the film can withstand, yet his plight in pursuit of novelty that eventually fades feels tragic especially with the bombardment of the new in this technological age. There is no shortage of new products to buy or strangers to meet, but what is one left with after the fleeting thrill of the unknown disappears?

ANOMALISA may be more disquieting than anything else in Kaufman’s neurotic body of work, which is why the humor about common aggravations provides brief but welcome breaks from the heaviness. Michael’s difficulties with getting a hotel shower’s water temperature right and failures with his room’s key card are amusing nuisances that can be shared with him even if his mental breakdown can’t. The unimaginative recommendations of what to do in a city, like Cincinnatians suggesting going to the zoo and trying the local chili, may be so funny because they reflect the same responses one could get from anyone in a place. Noonan’s voice work amuses with the deadpan nuance he employs in speaking for the masses. For as critical as ANOMALISA may seem of the indistinct crowd, the anger and disgust directed at them are just deflected feelings of those who own them. For the malcontents and misanthropes, the problem is really in here than out there.

Grade: B+

The House of the Devil

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (Ti West, 2009)

College sophomore Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) has tired of living in the dorm with a slovenly, inconsiderate roommate and decides to look for her own place.  She finds a perfect apartment but needs to round up the funds to secure it.  On campus she spots a flyer requesting a babysitter and arranges to take the job on the night of a lunar eclipse.

Soon after arriving at the stately house deep in the countryside Samantha learns that she’s been brought there under false pretenses.  Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan), an exceedingly polite older man, explains that it is not a child she is to oversee but an elderly woman who will probably stay holed up in her room.  He apologizes for misrepresenting the situation and makes up for it by agreeing to pay $400 for four hours of work.  

Samantha is aware that something is amiss in this arrangement, but the money will more than cover her first month’s rent.  How can she turn that down?  Her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig) pleads for her to leave, as surely this offer is too good to be true, but Samantha is steadfast and settles in as her friend and the couple who hired her depart.

Media reports and urban legends of Satanism and Satanic ritual abuse were widespread in the 1980s.  That’s one of the reasons why writer-director Ti West has chosen that decade as the setting for THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL.  The film opens with presumably spurious numbers for the high percentage of people who believed that devil worship and Satanic rituals were a problem at the time.  Whether or not Samantha puts stock in such reports, they’re likely to be in the back of her mind while alone in a creepy house.  Having been less than upfront about the job, Mr. Ulman suggests as much when making an oblique reference to those rumors and for his prospective hire’s need to be careful while he tries to put Samantha at ease.

The time period is also important because West is interested in exploring that era’s horror film style.  Although the camerawork and longer takes are not techniques exclusive to ‘80s fright fests--HALLOWEEN and ROSEMARY’S BABY seem like reference points too--a distinctly retro approach marks THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL as quite different from its contemporaries.  First and foremost, West masterfully sustains suspense as Samantha explores the home and gradually becomes worried that she is in danger.  The unsettling tone lingers heavily in the air and is all the more potent because the payoff is withheld until very late.

Donahue is effective as a stressed out coed who makes a regrettable but understandable decision.  The casualness of her performance, most visible as she dances around the house listening to The Fixx, grounds the film and keeps it stabilized even when what transpires becomes more unhinged from a typical night of caretaking. The restraint in performance extends to the others as well.  Gerwig’s amusing turn as the more rebellious friend turned voice of reason reflects how someone might respond in these circumstances than how a horror movie character would behave.  Like a spider spinning a trap, Noonan’s meek and eerie portrayal chills because of how he effortlessly he captures his prey.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL mimics the aesthetics of ‘80s horror films, but this is no mere case of imitative homage.  Laden with dread and executed with a musician’s sense of timing, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is better than a substantial number of the films it resembles.

Grade: A-