REVIEW: Anomalisa

I love Charlie Kaufman about as much as it's possible to love someone you've never met. His films - particularly Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but also Synecdoche, New York and Being John Malkovich - have had a bigger impact on the way I write than those of almost any other writer. Whenever it comes to explorations of the mind, the personality, and the ways, both conscious and subconscious, in which we respond to art, there are few minds out there who can respond with such stunning insight.

So when I say that Anomalisa is one of the best films Kaufman's ever made, you'd better believe I mean it. And it's strange to say that because, in spite of its material appearance, it's one of his most unapproachable works yet. The story centres around Michael Stone (David Thewlis), a customer service expert who's flown to Cincinnati to give a talk about his latest book. Thing is, Stone's going through a midlife crisis, so he perceives everyone around as the same person, with the same voice. Oh, did I forget to mention it's a stop-motion animation? That's quite important. The characters - while altogether more detailed than, say, their Wallace and Gromit brethren - are crafted in a way that draws attention to the facial masks they're wearing, which sport cracks around the edges and across the eyes. Everyone bar Michael is wearing the same mask, and all of them are voiced by that terrifically unnerving character actor, Tom Noonan.

Well, almost all of them. Restless in the hotel he's staying in, Michael suddenly hears a different voice. He sprints along the corridor, knocking on doors, until he finally comes across a room occupied by two women. One of them is called Lisa, and is voiced with heartbreaking inelegance by Jennifer Jason Leigh. Michael, asserting himself with an almost predatory confidence, buys them drinks, then invites Lisa back to his hotel room.

I mentioned that this film is quite unapproachable, and it's not just because of the stop motion - though that is a part of it. Rather, we're asked to view the world through Michael's eyes. And Michael isn't necessarily the nicest guy in the world. He's narcissistic, self-involved, and capable of quite ruthless cruelty. Spending time with him is uncomfortable, to say the least, because we're afraid of what he might do to people, what kind of havoc he might cause in his vulnerable, self-destructive state.

But that's the genius of the film. The stop motion conceit is one of the best renderings of the subjective experience that I've ever seen. We never forget that people are puppets, and therefore, we never really empathise with them - just like Michael. We get sick of Tom Noonan's voice so quickly, we find anyone who's speaking with it intensely annoying - just like Michael. And when Jennifer Jason Leigh comes along, we're desperate to hear her speak, and sing, that we're completely willing to ignore her flaws - just like Michael.

And then, well, there's the sex scene. Destined to rank alongside Don't Look Now in the hall of the all-time greats, the moment when Michael and Lisa become intimate is simultaneously unreal, surreal, and, in spirit, more real than anything else out there. It's deeply uncomfortable, and feels like it lasts for eons, but there's real beauty in it - like we're seeing humanity stripped back to its most vulnerable, exposed essence. The film attains tragic proportions the morning after, when Leigh's voice is suddenly overlayed by Noonan's, and we realise that, for Michael, the spell has worn off. He's bored of her, and he's doomed to remain unhappy.

There's an argument to be made that the conceit works best in its original state, as a "voice play". (Apparently, the actors would sit on stage and read their lines while sound effects were played around them, leading to some Brechtian-based LOLs.) But it's the visuals that transforms this film into something beautiful. I've always thought that animation is better at capturing the essence of life than live-action cinema - if cinema is a medium for transforming life into something meaningful, then surely the greatest purity can be achieved by a complete breaking from reality? In Anomalisa, something as simple as walking down a corridor becomes something magical, simply because of its precise, and otherworldly, execution. I loved it.

★★★★★

REVIEW: Batman vs. Superman

WHY DO ALL SUPERHERO FILMS HAVE TO BE SO LOUD? CHRIST, TRY AND REMEMBER THE LAST TIME THERE WAS ONE THAT HAD A MOMENT OF GENUINE SILENCE, WHICH DIDN'T PUNCTUATE EVERY SCENE WITH HANS ZIMMER MUSIC AND A BIG FUCK-OFF EXPLOSION. YOU CAN'T DO IT, CAN YOU? AND THIS FILM, A KIND OF NERD MECCA, HAS TO BE THE LOUDEST OF THEM ALL. IT'S NOT COMPLETELY TERRIBLE, IT'S JUST EXHAUSTING - LIKE BLASTING AC-DC FROM A HELICOPTER, WHILE HAVING TO MAINTAIN A CONVERSATION WITH ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER.

THE PLOT IS A BIG FUCK-OFF MESS, BUT IT MOSTLY CENTRES AROUND TWO MEN, BUILT LIKE FRIDGES, PREPARING TO BEAT THE HOLY LIVING SHIT OUT OF ONE ANOTHER. BEN AFFLECK PLAYS BATMAN, AND SPENDS MOST OF HIS TIME SNARLING AND MOANING ABOUT HIS DEAD PARENTS. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE SEEN THEM DIE, NOW? THOUGH BATMAN'S STORYLINE IS CERTAINLY MORE COMPELLING THAN SUPERMAN'S, WHO SPENDS MOST OF THE TIME MOANING ABOUT HIS AWESOME SUPERPOWERS AND ATTRACTIVE GIRLFRIEND - PLAYED BY AMY ADAMS, NO LESS. AND THEN LEX LUTHOR SHOWS UP, AND WONDER WOMAN, AND YOU JUST WANT TO SIT IN THE CORNER AND HAVE A CUP OF TEA, AND MAYBE A LITTLE CRY. BUT YOU CAN'T, BECAUSE THE FILM GOES ON FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS. TWO AND A HALF HOURS. TWO AND A HALF HOURS.

AFFLECK IS FINE, HENRY CAVILL IS FINE, JESSE EISENBERG GIVES THE WORST PERFORMANCE OF HIS CAREER. I WILL BEGRUDINGLY ADMIT THAT ZACK SNYDER STAGES A FEW GOOD ACTION SCENES THAT, IF SEEN IN ISOLATION, WOULD BE BRUISINGLY EFFECTIVE. BUT TAKEN AS A WHOLE, BATMAN VS SUPERMAN IS A HUMOURLESS, TWO AND A HALF HOUR BOUT OF ENDURANCE, WHICH MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN MADE BY A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD. BUILDING UP TENSION? PACING? WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND OF QUEER? LET'S DO TWELVE EXPLOSIONS IN THE SPACE OF A MINUTE! FUCK YEAH!

★★

A few more thoughts on Hail, Caesar!

1. Alden Ehrenreich was properly great.
His character was the most genuine part of the entire thing, right up with Llewyn Davis and Marge Gunderson in terms of heartfelt Coen characters. And the scene he shared with Ralph Fiennes - complete with an expertly-timed hand whip - is probably the funniest thing I'll see all year.

2. Was the plodding structure intentional?
Was it supposed to be about the frivolity of Hollywood entertainment, about killing time?

3. If it's intentional, then does it make Hail, Caesar! worse or better?
There were quite a few moments where I was bored. Surely, then, the comedy wasn't good enough?

4. The comedy wasn't good enough.
For every great bit, there was a bit that was only so-so. Why was Jonah Hill there? Tilda Swinton only hinted at being funny. Where were the gags?

5. Why did the storylines fizzle out so noticeably?
Scarlett Johannson showed promise, then disappeared. So did Frances McDormand.

6. Am I just being a grumpy bugger?
No.

7. At least it showed that most movies made in the 50s were a bit shit.
And the homoerotic undertones-made-overtones of the sailor sequence were properly funny.

8. I'm still getting over the fact that Alden Ehrenreich was so good in this film.
The scenes with him taking his co-star on a date were so sweet. And that lasso work! Hot damn.

Oh yeah, here's an updated version of my Scale of Coen™:

1. Miller's Crossing
2. Fargo
3. Inside Llewyn Davis
4. No Country for Old Men
5. The Man Who Wasn't There
6. The Big Lebowski
7. Blood Simple
8. Barton Fink
9. True Grit
10. Raising Arizona
11. A Serious Man
12. Hail, Caesar!
13. Burn After Reading
14. The Hudsucker Proxy
15. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
16. Intolerable Cruelty
17. The Ladykillers

REVIEW: Hail, Caesar!

As acting president of the Coen Brothers' fan club, I might not be in the most neutral position to review Hail, Caesar! But I think this also puts me in a good position to see when their work might not be up to snuff - and while their latest might be one of the funniest, most original screwball comedies we're likely to see this year, it's ultimately empty, adding up to little more than a collection of well-made sketches.

The story - if there even is one - follows Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), who's based on the real-life "fixer" in 1950s Hollywood, responsible for handling stars and covering up scandals. In the history books, he's a dark figure, who was famously involved in the suspicious death of Superman star George Reeves. But the Coens consciously re-invent him as a nice guy, who visits his priest every 24 hours to confess smoking a cigarette after he's told his wife he's going to quit. It's like Mannix himself has had a hand in his own script. Yet it serves their overall vision - that Hollywood, for all its flaws, is a palace of dreams, full of kooks and oddballs who are all granted with the opportunity to weave their own brand of movie magic.

Mannix is working on Hail Caesar: A Tale of the Christ, a prestigious bible-epic with a big star, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney). Problem is, Whitlock gets drugged and kidnapped, so Mannix has to pull some strings and recruit the help of some stars to get his movie star back, all while keeping things out of the reach of the press and ruminating on an attractive job offer.

And...that's about it, really, as far as plot goes. What this really gives the film an excuse to do, though, is pastiche the hell out of classical Hollywood. And what a cast the Coens have assembled to do so. Beyond Clooney doing Ben-Hur, we have Scarlett Johannson doing an Esther Williams mermaid musical; we have Channing Tatum doing a brilliant imitation of tap-dancing Gene Kelly; and in the film's best scene, we have singing cowboy Alden Ehrenreich (who surely deserves to become the film's breakout star) trying his hand at a period costume drama, under the command of impatient thespian Ralph Fiennes.

Throw in a scene with a Soviet submarine, and some great blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos from Wayne Knight and Clancy Brown, and surely you've got a hit? Well, not exactly. While the Coens have always had a deft touch for movie magic, creating worlds we could never even dream of, they're not always so great at filling their films with urgency. The through line of the film is Mannix, and he struggles a bit with his faith. But for what purpose? Nothing that happens to him during the timeline of the film seems to test him in any way. The kidnapping storyline with Clooney? Well, spoilers, but it resolves itself. There's a couple of subplots to do with communism, and star image - but again, it's all airy nothingness, that makes very little impact. I mean, it's fine for the stakes to be low in a comedy - but can't we give these tremendously talented people something to do beyond just showing up on-screen?

In fairness, the film sort of engages with this, even if it doesn't offer anything more interesting in return. In conversations with his priest, Mannix says his job is easy, and to do something harder - and more serious - somehow feels "right". But he doesn't. He's too enchanted with the movies. And I think the Coens, for all their clever deconstructions of the medium, love the movies too. In fact, I don't think it's a stretch to say that, for them, the movies are like a religion. It's just a shame this is one of their weaker psalms.

★★½

REVIEW: Bone Tomahawk

Forgot to write about this. It's really good! Don't read anything about it, just go and see it.

Unless you're squeamish. Then, um, don't go and see it.

★★★★