ANOMALISA Special Screenings

We all are self-obsessed, but customer service guru David Stone is especially so. He’s in Cincinnati for one night to speak at a conference and sign his latest book. As he settles in his chicly generic hotel room and orders room service, it becomes clear that there’s something wrong with the world around him. Using stop-motion puppetry, Charlie Kaufman teams up with animator and co-director Duke Johnson to tell a unique but relatable tale of isolation, connection and interior life. Following up his Russian nesting doll of a directorial debut, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, Kaufman moves in the opposite direction with a film that is smaller, simpler and intimate, but no less stuffed with big ideas about our bizarre world. Through Kaufman’s and Johnson’s unconventional fractured lens we see our own reality more clearly. With a remarkable script and killer voice performances from Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Thewlis and an ever-present Tom Noonan, ANOMALISA is as unique, idiosyncratic and wondrously anomalous as its title suggests. – Lane Kneedler