ANOMALISA, dirs. Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
I always considered animation as the go-to medium for stories that would be impossible to depict in live-action. Whether it’s because the spectacle is too grand or the characters are too difficult to believably realize, my thinking was always that the main reason to go animated was because it was simply the only way to tell your story. And of course, Charlie Kaufman’s first endeavor in animation completely challenges my notion of what can be done with the format, and uses it to get at certain ideas in a way that no one else has, or probably would have ever, done.
Michael is a family man flying to Cincinnati for a seminar. He’s set to give a talk based on his book, a how-to guide for customer service reps. On the plane, he cradles a break-up note, and we soon figure out why; his ex lives in Cincinnati. He’s only in town for a night, but after a drink or two, he works up the nerve to call her and ask her over for a night cap at the hotel bar. The reunion goes sour when he confesses the extent of his loneliness and desperation, and she rejects his invitation up to his room. Ready to give up and call it a night, he hears a woman’s voice outside his hotel room, and knocks door-to-door to find out the source. He tracks down the woman, named Lisa, and invites her and her friend down for more drinks (he’s not a stranger to alcohol). He and Lisa end up making an intense connection that rocks him to his core, and starts making the already-intrusive cracks in his reality widen and threaten to suck him in.
The first thing you realize is that the stop-motion animation Kaufman and Duke Johnson have employed is that it’s kind of incredibly realistic. This isn’t TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE, where the joke is how dead and lifeless the characters are; these are shockingly expressive characters, with constantly fluctuating facial gestures and eye movements, and there are shots where I genuinely questioned whether what I was watching was stop-motion or actors wearing suits. There’s also some eye-grabbing stuff like the flame of Michael’s lighter, his puffs of cigarette smoke, the various cocktails he pours and are poured for him, and a surprisingly convincing piss at the toilet. There’s even a few moments where we get some full-frontal shots of Michael’s junk, which has considerably more definition than, say, a Ken doll or SEED OF CHUCKY. There’s also a great sex scene featuring cunnilingus and thrusting that is funny while never quite breaching into TEAM AMERICA levels of ridiculousness; there’s enough at stake that we’re not merely laughing at the audacity of the filmmakers in their simulation of the sexual act, though that’s certainly part of it.
But the genius of this film isn’t its portrayal of anything technically showy or visually opulent. For the vast majority of the film, we’re simply watching the rather humdrum, intimate story of this guy having a drunken existential crisis in a hotel in Cincinnati. Kaufman and Johnson spend a lot of shoe leather highlighting everyday annoyances, like weird flight companions, intrusive cab drivers, phony-nice bellhops, cookie-cutter hotel rooms, card keys that don’t work, overly lavish food and drink offerings, and, most pointedly, the ways men and women interact. Michael’s conversations with the various women in the film are wry portrayals of the various social customs and emotional hurdles of flirting and engaging romantically, and the fact that every gesture, glance, and verbal hiccup has obviously been meticulously planned makes it all seem elegant, specific, and beautiful. It is as intimate a portrayal of human interaction as anything in ADAPTATION, but without Oscar-caliber actors like Nicolas Cage, Chris Cooper, and Meryl Streep rendering the emotions live, it comes off as even more revealing and impressive.
One thing that deserves mention, both due to how funny it is and its demonstration of the film’s themes: every character besides Michael or Lisa is voiced by Tom Noonan. I didn’t place him, and early on, I thought it was William Fichtner, but it’s Noonan’s calm monotone coming out of every single person Michael interacts with, including children and women. It plays into this idea that Michael is so wrapped up in his own world that he now considers everyone other than himself, including his wife, child, and former lover, to be identical in his mind. He even vocalizes, “They’re all the same person!” But it’s Lisa (who has a burn scar, and sort of looks like a Gelfling), with the voice of Jennifer Jason Leigh, that sounds different to him. Something about her cuts through the monotony of his daily life, and for a while, that charge of newness, of possibility, of worlds yet unexplored make this middle-aged guy long for something more from his life. Poor Lisa has no idea why this guy, who she and her friends specifically flew to Cincinnati to hear speak, has taken such an interest in her, with no clues as to the state of his marriage or the unfortunate encounter he had immediately prior to meeting her. There’s a lovely, funny moment where she sings, imperfectly, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” and we, like Michael, are taken with how sincerely and earnestly she renders Lauper’s bubbly ‘80s lyrics. She is a fragile, vulnerable, if not particularly unique human being, and Michael is taken by her humility, her sincerity, and her obvious, apparent reverence of him…at least for a while. We know him better than she does, so we worry about him hurting her feelings more than the protagonist's personal problems, which is a testament to Leigh’s emotional, sweet performance and her ability to provide life to what is ostensibly a doll.
David Thewlis does the voice of Michael, and he’s phenomenally dry, angsty, and confused in his buttoned-up suburban malaise. We’ve seen a million and a half portrayals of bored, frustrated middle-aged white Americans on film, including in Kaufman’s own work, but somehow the mix of Thewlis’ weathered voice and the incredible animation make this seem new and insightful. He gives off just enough annoyance and anger in his clipped responses to basically everyone but Lisa that the film scores laughs without ever seeming like it’s reaching or playing (one dream sequence gets a little too physical-comedy for my tastes, but it’s worth it for where it ends up going). Because he’s such an everyman, and what he’s going through both seems and is fairly old-hat and conventional, there’s a moment in the film that ends up being electrifyingly shocking as a result; Michael looks in the bathroom mirror, and his face starts twitching and changing expressions uncontrollably, which makes him start to peel the panels that make up his stop-motion face off of his head before he’s suddenly interrupted. It recalls BEING JOHN MALKOVICH in its injection of the fantastic and the mind-bending into the average and pedantic world the story’s set in, and the thematic and narrative implications of the short, maybe 30-second scene blew my mind. Magnificently, Kaufman and Johnson don’t call back to that moment until late in the film (in a moment you could argue never really happened), and though it risks the possibility of sticking out amidst the drab everyday-ness of the rest of the film, it works as this shocking moment that’s almost Bunuel-esque in its absurdist surrealism while also exemplifying the core themes as well as anything else in the narrative.
After SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, I started to get the feeling that Kaufman’s directing work would lack the overt humor and narrative cohesion of his films with Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. Whatever it was, whether it was the collaboration with Duke Johnson or the participation of exec producer Dan Harmon (via his Starburns Industries), this film managed to turn me around into a big fan of Kaufman as a director. By toning down the overt narrative absurdity and channeling his break-the-convention tendencies into the form, he’s commented on contemporary life in America as well as any of his peers, and in a way that will likely never again be replicated. He and Johnson nail the slog that is working and being married and going through the motions with the memory of a vibrant, romantic youth still focused in the rearview, all while being acerbic, confident, and even sort of scary. There’s a genuine sense of existential dread hanging over every frame of the film, and the two filmmakers evoke how trapped Michael, and many of us, feel without ever heightening the reality to an irreversible degree. They’ve spent countless hours working with stop-motion, perfecting facial ticks, and simulating liquid and smoke to highlight the boringness and misery of everyday life, which is a decision that I applaud not only for its audacity, but for the filmmakers ability to get it exactly, perfectly right.
Plus, it’s funny as shit.
MACBETH, dir. Justin Kurzel
I don’t really have much to say about this movie. This is a somber, bleak-as-hell take on The Scottish Play, all madness and brimstone and sweaty, feverish acting. The biggest culprit in that regard is Michael Fassbender, whose take on the title character is looney tunes from the word go instead of slowly being driven mad by his guilt and his rapid ascension to power. This is 12 YEARS A SLAVE Fass, screaming, laughing, and leering like a madman, keeping us on the outside of his character save for a few moments, including the “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury” monologue. Marion Cotillard, interestingly enough, is more subdued as the traditionally evil Lady Macbeth, underplaying a role that I’ve always associated with mad, unbridled hunger for power and aggressive manipulation. Her accent isn’t quite Scottish, but it isn’t quite French either, and the Oscar-winning actress handles the Shakespeare-speak impressively well.
Kurzel is directing the ASSASSIN’S CREED movie, and as a newcomer to his work, I was curious to see how his work here transitioned him (and his two stars) over to that project. To be sure, the film begins and ends with majestic, fully-realized battle scenes, with excellent use of slo-mo, movement, and light. The climactic fight between Macbeth and Macduff at the blazing Great Birnam Wood is awe-inspiring, with the fire and smoke creating a surreal, powerful environment for these two to have their emotionally-charged final showdown. In general, his striking compositions are the centerpiece of the film, even though his faithful portrayal of a mid-millenium Scottish kingdom doesn’t leave much room for sunlight, bright colors, or anything particularly attractive or inviting. The foggy, overcast highlands are gorgeous and majestic, and maybe it’s due to how familiar the play is, but the moments of silence amidst this landscape were far more captivating and impressive to me than the iconic monologuing and exchanges.
I consider myself a big fan of Fassbender’s, so when I lay blame for a film at his feet (as I did with 12 YEARS A SLAVE), it weirds me out as much as it infuriates some of you. But I can’t deny that my failure to connect with his battle-weary, hollow Macbeth kept me at arm’s length with this adaptation, which I enjoyed far more for its look and atmosphere than any of the things I traditionally love about Shakespeare’s original play. It doesn’t radically re-realize any of the famous set-pieces, as Welles’ Shakespeare works tended to do, nor does it externalize the internal the way Branagh’s work has consistently attempted. It didn’t illuminate any new aspects of the original text, and I found myself getting bored several times, going through the motions and suffering through Fassbender’s overacting on the way to the inevitable conclusion. As an audition piece for the big-scale movies Kurzel has moved onto, this is quite an impressive piece of work, but I found it, like the title character says, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
YOUTH, dir. Paolo Sorrentino
Several privileged characters occupy an idyllic Swiss hotel seemingly reserved for the cultural elite. A conductor/composer (Michael Caine) refuses to comply with the Queen’s request for him to perform his famous “Simple Songs” for her and Prince Charles, citing his retirement. His best friend, a famous director (Harvey Keitel), develops his latest project, “The Last Day of Life,” with his group of much-younger writers and producers. The conductor’s daughter (Rachel Weisz) is dealing with the collapse of her marriage to the director’s son, who runs off with a pop star because, “She’s good in bed.” A young, hip actor (Paul Dano) reconciles his artistic ambitions with his worldwide fame as the IRON MAN-esque “Mr. Q.” And a massively overweight, world-famous opera singer (Roly Serrano) wades in the pool and hides his support cane from the multitude of paparazzi that surround the grounds.
Sure enough, the titular subject comes up a lot in Sorrentino’s film, as these characters examine themselves, where they’ve been, and how they’ve ended up at this point in their lives. But of course, the title has a double meaning; it also refers to the abstract notion of youth, and how that feeling of wonder and bewilderment at life can persist whether you’re 8 or 80 (or older). These characters, particularly the older ones, are at a point in their lives where things seem to be wrapping up or winding down, but the lesson that Sorrentino slowly coaxes out of the story is that there is always room for discovery, both internally and externally. The idea of keeping the spirit of youth alive in old age not an uncommon theme in films with older subjects, but it’s presented here in a natural, intelligent way that never makes it feel like another, “Every day can be the best day of your life,” faux-inspirational tale.
One of the main joys of this film is simply watching this great cast interact. Caine and Keitel have a lot of scenes together, often reminiscing about their 40-plus-year friendship, jabbing each other about old loves and life choices, and making bets on the behavior of the other hotel guests. It’s a joy to watch these two legendary actors traverse this secluded environment and engage with each other on an intimate level; Caine’s deadpan observations and wisecracks mix great with Keitel’s more animated, abstract musings, and the two make an irresistible pair, with their relationship serving as the beating heart of the picture. Weisz is complicated and heartbreaking as the 40-ish daughter whose life is falling apart around her, and whose relationship with her father has been strained by his habit of putting his career over his family. Dano, who gets to play the impossibly cool guy instead of the disturbed weirdo for once, is great as the Johnny Depp-esque actor who is soulful, intelligent, but conflicted regarding his career and his public image, and is willing to let him seem like a jerk more than once. Jane Fonda shows up late in the game as a famous actress, and though she’s playing kind of a diva, the Oscar-winner still injects enough humanity and intensity to her couple of scenes to make her seem like more than a caricature. Plus, it’s not any actress who can deliver a line like, “Marilyn, Grace, they’d all shit themselves when I’d walk in the room,” as believably as the former Hanoi Jane.
If Sorrentino leaned on the wistful dialogue and the excellent cast, he’d still probably come up with a strong, watchable film. But to his credit, he adds subtle visual flourishes here and there to spice the whole thing up and justify seeing it on a big screen instead of Netflix of VOD. The hotel the characters dwell hosts nightly musical performances on a circular, rotating stage on the grounds, and several scenes (including the extended opening) show off bands of various styles rocking out as they spin on the lit-up platform. There’s a dream sequence (shown in the poster), set in Venice I believe, where Caine’s character seems to be standing in the middle of a massive, flooded structure. I don’t know if they used special effects to create this scene, or whether such a location actually exists, but the sequence is striking to say the least, and says more about the character than much of his early dialogue. A late special effects shot isn’t as convincing, but is powerful nonetheless for its ambition and its visualization of the Weisz character’s internal journey. Two scenes, one with Caine and one with Keitel, are surreal representations of their character’s respective art forms, and communicate, quite touchingly, the spiritual appeal of both of their walks of life. Watching Caine sitting alone on a bench recalling the joys of conducting an orchestra while listening to the sounds of cows and cowbells highlights the power and aural delight of his character’s life’s work in a way that made me feel a little smarter, both in terms of my thinking regarding the art itself and the mindset of the conservative, introverted character.
The Caine-Keitel scenes worked so well for me that it’s hard for me to synthesize my thoughts on the rest of the film subjectively; it’s possible that nothing else in the film will work quite as well for others, but there’s certainly enough going on there to justify wrapping the film around them. However, I feel confident in saying that the film is elegant, quite funny, and surprising in a few respects. I didn’t expect “youth” to be less of a reference to regret than a call-to-arms for those who’ve given up on the joys of life. I didn’t expect Sorrentino to continue his meticulous framing and abstract interludes amidst the soul-baring dialogue and excellent acting. And I certainly didn’t expect Dano to throw on the getup he dons later in the film, where we see what Eastern European role he’s been researching for the film’s length. This is a good, if not great, movie that uses top-notch (in some cases legendary) actors to communicate, not preach, some very positive ideas on how to engage with the past, and more importantly, how to welcome the future. High marks.
