Mary and Max
Mary and Max
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Synopsis

This mature Aussie claymation feature went woefully underappreciated in 2009. After winning an Oscar for the short, Harvie Krumpet, Adam Elliott set about making this tragicomic tale about a little, lonely Australian girl (voiced by Toni Collette) who becomes pen pals with an older, obese New York Jew (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Picked at random, Mary's friendship with Max spans two decades, surviving marriages, bouts of alcoholism, hospital stays, near-death experiences, and all of life's other hurdles. "Remarkable and poignant" (Los Angeles Times). Additional voices by Eric Bana and Barry Humphries. Winner of a Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. In English and Yiddish. Adam Elliot---Australia---2009---92 mins.

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  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
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   | Lewis#4

This charming claymation (plasticine) film depicts an unlikely epistolary connection between a young Australian girl, Mary Daisy Dinkle (voice of Toni Collette), and a middle-aged New Yorker, Max Horovitz (voice of Philip Seymour Hoffman). Mary is homely, lonely, and appallingly neglected by her alcoholic/kleptomaniac mother and distracted father. Max is a middle-aged, Asperger's-afflicted, Jewish man who finds the world to be "confusing and chaotic." Their long correspondence begins when eight-year-old Mary randomly picks Max’s name from a Manhattan telephone directory and reaches out to him--this is 1976 when letter-writers still “took pen in hand”--with questions like “how are American babies born.” The chief interest here lies in that both are essentially children, clueless and lonely, trying to make sense of the world and happy to have, finally, a friend. The age difference is immaterial; they write to one another as equals. Later, as an educated, self-confident adult, Mary endangers her relationship with Max with a thoughtless, selfish act. (No need to say more than this; you should see the film.) This is an animated film for adults, though not inappropriate for young people old enough to know how life begins, how it ends, and how cruelly unfair it can be in the interim. If the overall mood is somber and the palette quasi-monochromatic (shades of brown and gray with primary-color highlights), there are also moments of inspired humor growing out of an irreverent, but non-malicious depiction of quirks, disabilities, and misfortunes. It is a fine, affecting film, beautifully conceived by writer/director Adam Elliot, who won an academy award for his animated short “Harvey Krumpet” (2003). This IFC DVD generously includes that short film (like “Mary and Max” a study of the triumph of optimism over calamity), as well as a humorous “The making of” spoof.

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