Whether Michael Stone has really turned a corner in his life, or merely enjoyed a brief distraction from all that troubles him, is left unresolved at Anomalisa's conclusion, but this much is certain: The audience won't soon forget what it has experienced.

A very fine portrait of the despair at the heart of a comfortable middle-aged white man in America circa right about now.

What drives the film is a scowling suspicion that modern man is a mechanized being, created as if on an assembly line, and stripped bare of individuality-a product, like any other merchandise.

Kaufman's script stings with uncomfortable truths, but doesn't do much else. Kaufman's medium has changed but his message is still the same.

Charlie Kaufman's animated feature is one of his best films yet, a haunting fable about the illusion of love.