Anomalisa

Michael Stone is a renowned motivational speaker and author, primarily on the topic of business customer relations. But Michael is not very motivated in his own life in that he is having problems relating to people, who all seem to be melding into one big mass of the same person, that big mass of one person which even includes his wife Donna and their adolescent son Henry. He has just arrived in Cincinnati, where he will be speaking at a conference, and in the process wants to reconnect with an old flame named Bella who lives there, in the hopes both that he can make it up to her about the way they broke up, and that she will be that bright light he is looking for in another person. Their meeting is nothing like he wants and doesn't clear up anything in his life. Alone and depressed in his hotel room, he meets Emily and Lisa, two women who will be attending his seminar at the conference. While it is Emily who usually is the one to whom most are immediately attracted, Michael instead wants to get to know Lisa, because she is different than everyone else and not included within that one big mass. His attraction to her is despite her having a scar on her face which she hides with her hair and she being non-confident in herself as a person. The question becomes what both Michael and Lisa can do to help the other in the issues the other is facing, both in the short term while they are in Cincinnati, and in the long term after the conference is over and they return to their respective lives.