In the US, Anomalisa ended up taking $3m off a budget of $8m. In the UK, it’s sneaked into the top 10 on its first week on release, and has already made more than half the total take of Kaufman’s last, Synecdoche, New York.
It’s a film which rewards a little unpicking – and further reading, such as this Anthony Lane review and this Zadie Smith piece highlighting the movie’s debt to Schopenhauer.
Here are a few possible starting points and a forum to talk about the movie without risk of ruining it for others – and to try to further decipher what it all really means. Warning! Spoilers ahead!
Lisa’s letter
The final scene is the only one in which Michael doesn’t appear, and so is not filtered through his subjectivity (or, of course, it might be his fantasy – a wish-fulfilment of sorts). In that we see that Lisa and indeed her friend are distinct beings. Does this confirm that Michael’s condition – the Fregoli delusion – is the unifying logic here. If so, what was it about Lisa that caused Michael to register her as a blip in his condition? Is this what love is like? Or was there something specific about the circumstances in which he first heard her voice: in front of the mirror, as his face falls off. Or is it yet more mysterious. “Jesus!” Michael exclaims. “Someone else!”
‘Did a change occur?’
When Michael discusses why he left Bella, he places the blame on her, suggesting that at some point, she must have changed, become just like everyone else. Is this sickness, or misogyny, or pure narcissism? Remember that in the dream, Michael has an epiphany: “They’re all one person and they love me.”
‘And Japanese, of course’
In the letter, Lisa says she has looked up “Anomalisa” in her Japanese-English dictionary. “It turns out it means ‘Goddess of Heaven’. Not that I think of myself that way of course. It’s just interesting.” It is. Why does Lisa have such a dictionary? Why does she say she likes Japanese “of course” when they are in the hotel room?
In the final scene in which we see Michael, there is one voice he hears which is not like the others: that belonging to the Geisha sex toy he has bought for his son. She is singing a Japanese folk song whose lyrics – “Momotaro, Momotaro / Those millet dumplings on your waist / Won’t you give me one? / I’ll give you one, I’ll give you one / From now, on a quest to conquer the ogres / If you come with me, I’ll give you one” – may be significant.
Is there a case to suggest Lisa and the doll are one and the same? Some have pointed out that it seems unlikely the sperm which leaks from the doll is anyone’s but Michael’s, given that the doll seems to have been in the store some time.
Mechanism
It isn’t a stretch to divine Kaufman is suggesting that the modern world has turned us into automata. So what’s the significance of the malfunctioning kit, such as the door fobs, the shower and the massive dildo, which falls shuddering to the floor? What about the “meeting room pit” and the hard-to-manoeuvre golf buggy in the hotel manager’s bizarre basement office? Does the antique nature of the doll differentiate her in some way, with her strange dead eyes?
Consumer choices
The uncanny mask required in order to achieve a pleasant customer service manner is a pervasive thread in the film. To what extent might Kaufman be suggesting that, as well as the effort it takes to maintain that, it is a surfeit of superfluous choice that’s corrupting us? Ordering room service, Michael must choose between about four different identical buttons on the hotel phone, then listen as every element of his meal is repeated back to him. His son cares only about what gift his father might bring back; Lisa and her colleague list the baked snacks they represent to their – and Michael’s delight. Lisa’s excitement at the idea of an apple mojito is both charming and sad – her thrill at being able to order scrambled eggs ultimately seems to prove her romantic undoing.
‘The president is a war criminal’
Anomalisa began as a staged radio play, performed by the same cast in 2005. But it is only towards the end of the film that we find out the date. So why did Kaufman not flag this earlier? Why did he not adjust Michael’s speech railing against the government and the corruption of the education system for nefarious ends? Are these simply persistently legitimate concerns, whoever is in the White House?
‘I wanna be the one to walk in the sun’
Lisa sings almost all of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, in English and in Italian. In Kaufman’s original radio play, this was Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ – changed because of rights issues. But why this song? What do its lyrics (“I come home in the morning light / My mother says when you gonna live your life right / Oh mother dear we’re not the fortunate ones / And girls they want to have fun / Oh girls just want to have fun” suggest about how Lisa is able to maintain a sense of self in the face of the defiance of others, and an optimism despite what appears to have been a bleak life to date.
‘And I will be no longer dead’
Another theory is that Michael is actually in hell – or a sort of purgatory. What can appear to be sleepwalking through life (“It’s boring; everything’s boring”) may in fact be a greater disconnection. The film both vindicates and cautions against people making the quest for someone – or something – special the focus of their lives. The final credits song, None of Them are You (a muzak version of which plays in the hotel lobby as Michael is checking in) emphasises the point in frightening style (“I’ll turn the corner and we’ll meet / And I will be no longer dead”).
But what do you think about Anomalisa? Did it speak to you? How does it compare to Kaufman’s other films? Let us know in the comments below.
