Anomalisa (2015)

On the surface I can see why this film didn't do well at the box office. On a whole the American movie viewing public will occasionally get excited about a movie that is just different enough to be somewhat titillating without being too different. Charlie Kaufman has made a career straddling the line between what the masses would watch as opposed to things that are more suited to the tastes of indie movie lovers. Adaptation and Being John Malkovich probably fit into the first category and the (criminally under-rated) Synecdoche, New York would fall into the second. In a sense this movie kind of reminds me of a kind of anti-Synedoche. That movie tried to show the span of a human life on a grand scale and was incredibly ambitious. Anomalisa takes a different turn - it tries to tell the story of a crumbling man in a rather minimalist sense. The movie is filmed entirely with puppets and in a weird kind of way it helps to bring out unique view of humanity. The movie was stripped right down and we were left with the raw emotions of the characters. That said, it was by no means my favorite Kaufman movie but he did get points for coming up with something really unique and moving.