Mary and Max
2009 Directed by Adam Elliot
Synopsis
Sometimes perfect strangers make the best friends.
A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.In the mid-1970's, a homely, friendless Australian girl of 8 picks a name out of a Manhattan phone book and writes to him; she includes a chocolate bar. She's Mary Dinkle, the only child of an alcoholic mother and a distracted father. He's Max Horowitz, living alone in New York, overweight, subject to anxiety attacks. He writes back, with chocolate. Thus begins a 20-year correspondence, interrupted by a stay in an asylum and a few misunderstandings. Mary falls in love with a neighbor, saves money to have a birthmark removed and deals with loss. Max has a friendship with a neighbor, tries to control his weight, and finally gets the dream job. Will the two ever meet face to face?
Studio
Popular reviews
More-
Film #15 of The December Project
If I could hug this film, I would.
The first thing I thought of when I read the description was "Toni Collette? Phillip Seymour Hoffman? YES PLEASE." I wasn't at all disappointed. Mary and Max is a delightfully weird, intense, emotional, and melancholy story of two outcasts who connect as pen pals. Mary is an eight year old girl from Australia who writes to Max, an overweight autistic man living in New York City. They share interests in chocolate, both have a history of dealing with intense bullying, and they both have unique perspectives on the world. They also look to each other for advice on how to understand people.
When Mary starts to…
-
Wow. Just Wow. Here I was thinking I wasn't all that fond of animated pictures. It turns out I am not that fond of animated pictures that are not that good. This is good. Great even.
The claymation is fabulous, the settings are outstanding (especially the scenes of New York), and the story, goodness, a real story with ups and downs, a story about characters who are flawed, sad, lonely, depressed, happy and depressed again, a story that makes you laugh and cry not because of any manipulative tricks but because of the characters themselves.
The only reason I have not given it 5 stars is because there is a little bit of drag in the last act. Other than that it is perfect.
Adam Elliot wrote, directed and designed this film, and it is his first feature. Adam Elliot, thank you.
-
A desperately bleak, yet beautifully constructed Australian claymation that despite often being as sickly sweet as a chocolate hotdog is sure to lure you into its web of everlasting charm and intelligent humour. Adam Elliot’s superb, adult-themed feature debut is a timely reminder for a number of moviegoers that animation is not synonymous with children.
-
Mary and Max is the story of two lonely and inherently odd individuals who by chance become pen pals. The premise may sound simple, but I assure you the film is anything but that. Director Adam Elliot fills Mary and Max with a set of wonderfully diverse themes, characters and plot points. This complexity allows the film to flawlessly comment on subjects such as social norms, human nature, loneliness and neglect. I will warn you, Mary and Max is not your typical animated film. It's dark and deals with incredibly sensitive issues. However, the film handles these issues with humor and care in a clear celebration of everyone and everything weird or different.
-
"He's scared of outside, which is a disease called homophobia."
Every time. Every damn time. This film makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it makes me go awww, and it makes me shit piles of sloppy clay for two weeks. That last side effect is not really my favorite thing, but I'll put up with it if it means I can bask in the dark glory of MARY AND MAX. It's just so fucking great.
P.S. All atheists are birthed by dirty, lonely prostitutes.
-
I think this is the 4th time I've seen Mary and Max now (I could probably check by having a look through my film diary) but one thing that's for sure is that it's one of my favourite animated films ever.
It's about two pen-pals in the 70s. One, a little girl in Australia, and the other, an obese and rather complicated man in New York. I have nothing but admiration for the amount of detail put into every single frame of the animation; not just technically, it does look great, the music's great, the sound effects even are great, but I mean narratively, character development-wise and everything else that goes along with it too.
It's a sweet film that's…
Recent reviews
More-
This movie is incredible. I'm going to attempt to collect my thoughts into a less than articulate review if I can. The only way I am going to go for it is in a list of numbers. It seems to help me organize.
1. Let's just take a moment to revel in the the visual beauty of this movie. Claymation movies have gotten a bad rap (cough cough Tim Burton cough) and have been regularly regarded as child's play (cough Gumby cough cough. Sidenote: no harm or rudeness to Gumby because I actually enjoy Gumby.)
But this movie changes things. It is a claymation movie, but every single shot is remarkable. Thinking about the effort and time that went into…
-
I am a big fan of animated films, and find myself enjoying the majority of them, in particular I seem to enjoy stop-motion films such as the work of British film production company Aardman, and was recommended this particular film by another film watcher who correctly predicted I would enjoy it.
Mary and Max tells the tale of an unlikely relationship between a young Australian girl Mary and an obese 40 year old American Max. The relationship is bizarre yet delightful, the two begin writing to each other and sharing their often mutual problems with the outside world, both suffer from social problems and find difficulty in developing friendships, have been the victims of bullying and teasing. The film is…
-
Why the hell did it take me so long to see this?! Wonderful, hilarious, moving, insightful, touching, gorgeous film.
-
A desperately bleak, yet beautifully constructed Australian claymation that despite often being as sickly sweet as a chocolate hotdog is sure to lure you into its web of everlasting charm and intelligent humour. Adam Elliot’s superb, adult-themed feature debut is a timely reminder for a number of moviegoers that animation is not synonymous with children.
-
Probably the sweetest movie you'll ever see. And one of the darkest.
-
Film 1/100 of the Jeapardous June Challenge
Ever since I first saw Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run in my younger years, I've been in love with clay-mation. For this reason, I don't know why it took me till now to watch this film, especially since it's been one of the first films in my Netflix recommendations for weeks now. I loved the original application of Mary and Max's animation to its subject matter. Instead of a frantic energetic childrens' movie the medium is used to, we get a sad, yet charming and mature adult film.
Despite its somewhat depressing plot, I was genuinely heartwarmed by the two lost souls at the centre of the narrative. Watching these two misfits find…
-
First off, this is not a film for everyone. The charming animation style and quirky humor may be enough for most audiences but there are dark subject matter beneath the surface that just gets darker as the film moves along. In short it is the story of a young Australian girl who happens to strike a friendship with a middle aged New Yorker when she randomly sends a letter. Mary's young curiosity about love and sex is often too much for the nervous Max. Despite the occasional mental break down he deigns to return her missives with his own, each side having skewed perceptions of the world. Both haven't the best understanding of so called reality. In Mary's case this…
-
A superb claymation movie featuring fantastic cinematography and full of melancholy, gothic humor with two beautifully weird, touching characters.
-
Heartfelt and heartbreaking. At first you may think it a strange choice to make this a stop-motion animated movie, but the writing/dialogue goes wonderfully with the aesthetic of this movie.