Review: Charlie Kaufman And Duke Johnson's Delightfully Downcast 'Anomalisa'

With apologies in advance to the people of Cincinnati, in the worldview of Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's "Anomalisa," or at least to the misfortune of its characters, the Queen City represents a soul-crushing dullness and boredom that could drive any man mad. For customer service guru and author Michael Stone (brilliantly voiced by David Thewlis as a classic Kaufman-esque misanthrope), already fundamentally unhappy and in the midst of a huge existential crisis, Cincy is a grueling hell on Earth of fatuous people and irritating small talk. In all fairness, it could be any faceless and anonymous city — part of Kaufman’s aim is to examine and send-up the mundanity of the business trip and that odd experience of feeling like an alien exploring the world of this not-quite-real, single-serving fantasy existence where people wait on you hand and foot.

Kaufman’s latest loopy movie, the kickstarted stop-motion animation film “Anomalisa,” is about an author flying...