It’s been a while since an R-rated animated film (remember A Scanner Darkly? What about South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut?) has hit the big screen. Leave it to director Charlie Kaufman, the writer behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to take the genre in new and unexpected directions with his striking stop-motion animated film Anomalisa (Paramount). Motivational customer service speaker and author Michael (voiced by David Thewlis) has left L.A. for a speaking engagement at a hotel in Cincinnati. Adored by his legion of followers, Michael’s personal life is in desperate need of motivation. His marriage is on shaky ground and his relationship with his young son could use some work. While in Cincinnati, Michael attempts to reconnect with an ex-girlfriend who he hurt deeply years before. Their reunion is a disaster. However, Michael clicks with a pair of female fans in town for his presentation. One of the women in particular, Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), piques his interest and they end up having sex. It’s probably best to stop there because, well, a pair of stopmotion-animation characters have sex, including a prolonged cunnilingus segment. Yes, you read that right. That’s not even the strangest part of the movie. For example, with the exception of Michael and Lisa, all the rest of the characters, including Michael’s wife and son, his ex-girlfriend Belle, Lisa’s best friend, the hotel staff, a cab driver and others,
male and female, are all voiced by Tom Noonan. Plus, Michael has this existential crisis that only Kaufman could have come up with. Funny and freaky, and nominated for an Academy Award, Anomalisa is truly an anomaly. “A mostly true story,” The Lady In the Van (BBC Films) once again pairs gay writer Alan Bennett with gay director Nicholas Hytner and effortlessly adds the brilliant Dame Maggie Smith to the formula resulting in a touching and incredibly entertaining experience. In the early 1970s, playwright Bennett (Alex Jennings) lived in a house in Camden Town in London. It was there that he wrote plays, regularly argued with himself, brought home the occasional male trick, and attempted to keep his mother at bay by talking to her on the phone and discouraging visits. His life changed considerably when Miss Shepherd (Smith, overlooked for an Oscar for her performance), a homeless devout Catholic ex-nun and former concert pianist who had been on the lam since a deadly car accident years before, parked her rundown caravan in his driveway. Shepherd, who relied on the kindness of strangers (without ever expressing a word of gratitude), had taken up residency on the street moving her vehicle as necessary. When she pulled in to Bennett’s driveway, neither of them realized she would be there for 15 years. Throughout her extended stay, as Shepherd struggled to maintain a grasp on reality, the duo developed an unlikely camaraderie, which is at the heart of the film.
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