Fittingly given its title, this offbeat gem is a true anomaly in the very best sense.
Directors Charlie Kaufman (Oscar-winning writer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Duke Johnson have achieved a cinematic miracle, creating something archly artificial yet also one of the most resonant studies of the human condition on film.
Produced using stop motion and puppets that are deliberately, distractingly not quite realistic (you can see the joins across their faces), the filmmakers explore what it feels like when the spark drops out of life.
In some ways it feels like a cousin to the equally excellent Lost in Translation, which is also set in a hotel and features a 'lost' man reinvigorated by a connection with a woman.
David Thewlis voices Michael Stone, a British retail expert living Stateside and staying in a hotel so he can deliver a keynote speech at a conference.
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Tom Noonan voices almost everyone else. Everyone sounds the same and looks the same. Michael is dislocated from society, from his family. He feels alone and frustrated and unable to connect to anyone.
Except Lisa, an insecure call centre employee in town for the conference. She sounds different (and is played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, the third and final voice actor in the cast).
We don't know why Michael felt so dislocated (stuck in a rut, depressed, ill?), how long he has felt this way or how he can escape it. And this makes the movie stronger. He could be any one of us in a crisis.
While (nearly) everyone looks and sounds the same and everything is in stop motion puppetry, this is sharply observed and painfully real.
There is humour, lots of awkwardness and sadness - and faultless, authentic dialogue.
They may be puppets but in many ways they look and behave more like real humans than in most live-action movies. They have paunches and, something you won't even see spot in 50 Shades of Grey, a penis. Just like real people have.
There is a puppet sex scene which is surprisingly convincing in its nervous awkwardness.
At times this film is laugh-out-loud funny, at times it will make you squirm and it will probably make you despair. In movie terms, not a lot really happens but Anomalisa is heartwrenchingly memorable.
Anomalisa (15) is out Friday, March 11
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