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Kaufman's stop-motion 'Anomalisa' is a visual treat

I have seen Charlie Kaufman's stop-motion, animated drama "Anomalisa" twice, and both times the sheer technical skill of this motion picture burst my eyeballs. More than 118,000 individually photographed frames went into the making of this movie.

Filmmakers posed and shot their handmade puppets, sets and props to obtain a whopping two seconds of footage per day. The exquisite lighting imbues the scenes with a painterly patina, complemented by dramatic tracking shots, shifting depths of field and crisp editing that leave no doubt "Anomalisa" is a cinematic achievement.

Yet, Kaufman's cerebral, surrealistic examination of the human need to connect - codirected by stop-motion animator Duke Johnson - comes off as cinematic broccoli.

I know it's good, but I can't quite get into it.

The movie operates like the downer side to the Tony-winning musical "Avenue Q." Those puppets comment on human foibles in song, and their sex scenes are considerably funnier.

Here, David Thewlis stars as Michael Stone, a noted, middle-aged motivational speaker for customer service. He checks into a Cincinnati hotel to speak at a conference, then promptly calls an old flame, despite having a family back in Los Angeles.

The meeting doesn't go well with his ex, oddly voiced by Tom Noonan, the erstwhile Tooth Fairy serial killer in "Manhunter."

Noonan, as we discover, oddly voices almost all of the male and female characters in "Anomalisa," suggesting that Michael could be suffering some sort of break from his emotions, feelings and reality.

Only one other character escapes being Noonanized: Lisa, an Ohio customer service rep pumped with emotional depth and poignant personality by Jennifer Jason Leigh, provides the most vibrant and memorable voice work since Robin Williams' Genie.

Michael instantly likes Lisa, a frumpy, self-conscious woman with a small disfigurement on her face. She is genuine and human. Michael leverages his marginal fame (she's read his customer relations manual, "How May I Help You Help Them?") into a one-night stand.

Moments in "Anomalisa" hint that the story might veer into "Twilight Zone" or M. Night Shyamalan turf. Michael experiences a paranoia dream expounding on his fears of becoming a virtual robot. Yet, his waking hours pack several nebulous reality slips already.

It doesn't help that Michael is a puffy, baldfaced (with marionette-like seams above the eyes and around his jaw) narcissist wallowing in his own pity most of the time.

"What is it to be human?" he shouts during his convention speech. "What is it to ache? What is it to be alive?"

Good questions, and Kaufman prefers to pose them rather than commit to conclusions that suggest useful insights.

Kaufman's thoughtful, idiosyncratic works - "Adaptation," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Synecdoche, New York" (his directorial debut) - wrestle with human desires, despair, failures and fears. "Anomalisa" addresses them as well.

But I wonder.

In Kaufman's "Being John Malkovich" (my best picture of 1999), John Cusack plays a puppeteer. Sixteen years later, Kaufman becomes one himself.

Did he plan this?

“Anomalisa”

★ ★ ★

Opens at the Century Centre in Chicago. Rated R for language, graphic nudity and sexual situations. 90 minutes.

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