Meet The Characters Of ANOMALISA In Two New Featurettes

(Photo by Mark Davis/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures/AFI Fest Special Screening at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, CA)

Jennifer Jason Leigh voices Lisa and David Thewlis voices Michael Stone in directors Charlie Kaufman’s and Duke Johnson’s new film, ANOMALISA.

On screen, ANOMALISA fits in seamlessly alongside Kaufman’s signature works, including BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ADAPTATION, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, modern classics featuring hapless but wholly unforgettable protagonists enduring the long night of the soul under surreal, darkly comedic circumstances. With its play-on-words title infusing the writer-director’s profound love of wordplay and language, ANOMALISA addresses typically Kaufmanesque themes of isolation, loneliness, melancholy and depression, and the search for connection — or “a sort of hope for connection,” as Kaufman puts it.

Meet both Lisa and Michael in two newly released featurettes.

Michael Stone, husband, father and respected author of “How May I Help You Help Them?” is a man crippled by the mundanity of his life.

On a business trip to Cincinnati, where he’s scheduled to speak at a convention of customer service professionals, he checks into the Fregoli Hotel. There, he is amazed to discover a possible escape from his desperation in the form of an unassuming Akron baked goods sales rep, Lisa, who may or may not be the love of his life.

Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures © 2015 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

A beautifully tender and absurdly humorous dreamscape, from the brilliant minds of Charlie Kaufman (SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK) and Duke Johnson (“Community” episode, Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas), this stop-motion animation wonder features the vocal cast of Jennifer Jason Leigh (THE HATEFUL EIGHT), Tom Noonan and David Thewlis and a stirring strings-based score by Carter Burwell.

The darkly comedic and surreal stop-motion journey of a man’s long night of the soul, ANOMALISA confirms Charlie Kaufman’s place amongst the most important of American filmmakers, and announces Duke Johnson as a major creative force.

From Paramount Pictures, ANOMALISA opens in select theatres December 30th. Everywhere January.