Anomalisa (2015)

Michael is a famous self-help author on a business trip to Cincinnati. He's depressed to the point that all of the people around him look and sound the same. He calls home to let his wife know he's gotten in safely, and her voice is the same bland and bored one we've heard coming from several dozen others by this point. When he hears a unique voice outside his closed hotel door, he runs to find its source and meets Lisa -- an unremarkable person except for the fact that her face and voice can be recognized as different. So, he excitedly courts her only to witness her loss of uniqueness -- morphing into the same bland mask and voice the rest of the world shares.

There are a couple of theories about the meaning of this movie. For example, the name of the hotel (Fregoli) is the name of a mental delusion where one believes several people can be the same person adopting disguises. Michael also mistakenly visits a sex toy shop and purchases an antique wind up doll for his son -- and the doll has some damage on her face in the same area that Lisa has some scarring. So, maybe all of this is in his mind? I don't really know.

I think there could be a deep, effective story here, but you have to slog through so much to get to to that, it hardly feels worth it. Also, Michael's feels irredeemably selfish -- e.g. when Lisa advises him that if he's going to leave his family he should let his son know it's not because of him and Michael corrects her to say that the son IS part of the reason he's leaving -- so that it was truly difficult to care.

D+