By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
Make no mistake: “Anomalisa” is an R-rated animated feature – for adults!
In writer/director Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York,” he raised provocative philosophical questions which he now explores existentially, utilizing puppets in stop-motion animation.
First seen on an airplane to Cincinnati, middle-aged Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) is the acutely depressed author of a customer-service self-help book called “How May I Help You Help Them?”
Preparing to deliver a motivational speech the next day, Michael checks into the posh Fregoli Hotel, dutifully calls his wife and son in Los Angeles, and tries to re-ignite an old flame for a drink.
Significantly, everyone Michael speaks with – the flight attendant, taxi driver, desk clerk, bellhop, hotel manager and family members – looks and sounds the same (all voiced by Tom Noonan), often robotically repeating banal phrases.
Wretchedly lonely and disillusioned, he encounters an insecure, impressionable young admirer, Lisa (voiced Jennifer Jason Leigh), a naïve sales rep who – after some apple mojitos – eagerly responds to his overtures in her own distinctive voice, warbling Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
“You’re an anomaly,” he tells her after they share a long, slow, explicit sex scene. “You’re Anomalisa.”
Kaufman’s story originated in 2005 as a “radio play” for composer Carter Burwell’s Theater of New Ear at UCLA; Burwell scored Kaufman’s screenplays for “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation” and now this.
Working with animator Duke Johnson, Kaufman focuses one man’s darkly comic, yet desperate need for human connection.
FYI: Kaufman often uses the pseudonym Francis Fregoli, referencing the Fregoli delusion, a rare psychiatric condition in which a person sees the rest of the world as populated by multiple versions of one, ominously malevolent individual.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Anomalisa” is an absurdist, surreal 8, superciliously meditating on our increasingly prevalent social isolation.
Dame Maggie Smith – a.k.a. Dowager Countess of Grantham on “Downton Abbey” – stars in “The Lady in the Van,” Alan Bennett’s adaptation of his West End hit play, based on his best-selling memoir.
After Bennett reluctantly befriended Miss Mary Shepherd in 1974, the eccentric British bag lady “temporarily” parked her dilapidated van in his driveway, where she lived for the next 15 years. A former nun, she explained that the Virgin Mary had advised it.
The celebrated London playwright/screenwriter/actor/author is played by Alex Jennings in a dual role: the Alan Bennett who writes and the Alan Bennett who observes and probes for truth. He engages in a long-running debate with himself about what to do about increasingly decrepit, demanding Miss Shepherd, who smells of urine, feces, raw onions and talcum powder.
“One seldom was able to do her a good turn,” he observes, “without some thoughts of strangulation.”
At the same time, Bennett is dealing with his dementia-afflicted mother. And it’s only after Miss Shepherd’s eventual demise that he discovers her ‘secret,’ which made her technically guilty of a felony and open to blackmail.
A fervent Catholic, guilt-riddled Miss Shepherd often confesses this sin to a priest who repeatedly absolves her. Eventually, he’s pressed to explain: “Absolution is not like the bus pass. It doesn’t run out.”
Director Nicholas Hytner studs this touching, “mostly true” character study with cameos by British thespians Roger Allam, Jim Broadbent, Dermot Crowley, Frances de la Tour and James Corden.
On the Granger Gauge, “The Lady in the Van” is a whimsical, poignant 7, serving as a showcase for venerable Maggie Smith.
“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is a novelty horror/action/romantic comedy satire: an absurdly quirky, comedic reimagining of Jane Austen’s classic tale of tangled relationships between lovers from different social classes in 19th century England.
“It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains,” says spirited Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James). So she and her four marriageable sisters are masters of Chinese martial arts.
The beautiful eldest sister, decorous Jane (Bella Heathcote), catches the eye of eligible Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth), while strong, confident Elizabeth spars with perpetually brooding Col. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Sam Riley), a snobbish, yet renowned zombie killer.
Inevitably, they must band together to vanquish the decomposing ghouls from the land.
In the opening sequence, as the Bennet sisters slip weaponry into the garters of their Regency-era finery, writer/director Burr Steers (“Igby Goes Down,” “17 Again”) sets a playful, cheeky, girl-power tone – which fades all-too-soon.
Based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s bestselling 2009 novel, the result is neither funny enough nor scary enough. Worst of all, the walking dead gimmick grows tedious and tiresome.
FYI: “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” was an adaptation of another Seth Grahame-Smith novel.
Charles Dance and Sally Phillips play the Bennet parents, while Matt Smith (TV’s “Doctor Who”) adds amusement as prissy Parson Collins. Jack Huston is dastardly as Mr. Wickham, and Lena Headley glowers as Darcy’s Amazonian warrior aunt, Lady Catherine de Bough.
On the Granger Gauge, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is a feebly fanciful 5, and a post-credit scene suggests there may a sequel.
( Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
