Or the Big Steal. You decide.

Spoiler alert: At the end of the film, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 happens. Billions of dollars are wiped off share markets around the world. Millions are made unemployed and many governments are still trying to clean up the mess with stimulus packages even today.

But this is not a movie about that. For that, see 99 Homes screening later this semester. This is a movie about how we got into that mess: how banks created dodgy financial products to make easy money and the few who figured out what was happening before it happened.

Fortunately, for those not in the know, the movie takes the time to explain – visually, thankfully – how the world market was manipulated into thinking the mortgage bonds that they were being sold were safe, when they were in fact about as stable as an Empire State Building sized Jenga tower.

A top Hollywood A-list cast including the likes of Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell all roll off their witty one-liners almost as if they are in some alternative heist out of an Ocean’s 11 movie – but in real life, their counterparts were in fact just a group of very smart accountants in suits exploiting the near downfall of capitalism for a profit.

Nearly a hundred years ago, some other very smart men also existed and saw the free world financial system collapsing around them. The time was the The Great Depression of the 1930s and the men were John Maynard Keynes and Harry Hopkins. But they did not try to profit from it – they tried to save it. What a different world we live in now.

“What is it to be human? What is it to ache? What is it to be alive?”

If you only watch one animated film this year, make sure it is Anomalisa. Hailed as the ‘most human stop motion animation film ever’, this critically acclaimed drama is about an author who writes self-help books but finds himself struggling to connect with other people – until one day he meets a woman who changes the way he looks at the world forever.

The film is written and co-directed by Charlie Kaufman who was also responsible for penning the equally distinctive cinematic experiences that are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. The Oscar-winning Kaufman has a reputation of narrating seemingly complex stories and Anomalisa is no exception with its seemingly straightforward yet introspective approach to storytelling. Thought provoking and truly unique, it is sure to stay with you long after its brief 90 minute running time is up – and is bound to grow on you even more as time passes.

The film took nearly three years to complete, a fact entirely evident in the amount of effort, detail and dedication contributed to the film’s incredibly realistic animation. With Anomalisa, Kaufman and company have truly succeeded in forging a soulful connection with the audience, giving a movie starring stop-motion puppets a very human touch throughout – a rare feat that even live action films can be found increasingly struggling to accomplish these days.