Film Review - Mary and Max (2009)

Mary and Max is a Australian Stop-motion animated film directed by Adam Elliot in 2009. It follows the story of two strangers that eventually become pen-pals. Mary Dinkle is a lonely 8 year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia; Max Horovitz is an obese, 44 year old Jewish man with Asperger's Syndrome living in New York City. Mary finds Max's address in a phone book and decides to write him and through 20 years of writing each other they become close friends.

Figure 1.

The themes the movie deals with are friendship, suicide, mental illness, obesity, growing up, neglect, and isolation. For a Animated Movie it definitely deals with some dark and mature themes, but through it's animation style it makes it easier express and discuss it. Mary and Max share the same Loneliness and Isolation as Mary is neglected by her parents and is bullied at school, Max struggles with his obesity and struggles to understand love and relationships. Eventually the movie unravels that Max has been living with Asperger's Syndrome which is why he cant understand certain things and tends to get very anxious. As Mary grows older she begins pathing a life for herself but eventually she falls into depression when she falls out with Max and almost ends her life. But what overcomes these struggles that these characters have is their friendship over the years, the letters they wrote to each other were kept them afloat despite the fact they have never met before.

Through the claymation method it was easier to communicate these difficult themes as it makes viewers see the story as more fiction than real, though if the medium where a live action the theme would be too dark as it's acted material of real difficult themes would make viewers uncomfortable, So animation is an easier step as it's a more cartoony way of expressing darker themes.

Figure 2.

The movie was Produced using Claymation, a process involving clay puppets and stop-motion, it did a lot for the style of the movie as you can see the varying colours of the separate worlds that Mary and Max live in, other than that it helps communicate the style better of the kind of mood the movie is presenting which is quite gloomy and sad.

The movie overall received positive reviews and grossed over 1 million dollars in the Australian Box office, although it didn't receive any theatrical release in United States Theatres it did showcase in several American Film Festivals and was briefly shown at the Laemmle Theatres in LA. It won the 'Best Animated Feature Film' at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards; the 'Crystal Bear' Category at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Writer and Director Adam Elliot made this movie Based in his own Pen-pal experience "I do have a pen friend in New York who I've been writing to for more than 20 years. He does have Asperger's, he is a big man, he is Jewish. he is an atheist. And Mary... Well, I suppose Mary is me. Her environment was very similar to my own childhood experience."  (Pond, 2009) So most of the influences of the movie comes from Elliots own experience of writing to a pen-pal.

Illustrations

Figure 1. - Mary and Max 2009 -  Adam Elliot - [Movie Poster]
Figure 2. - Mary and Max 2009 -  Adam Elliot - [Movie Still]

Bibliography

Pond, Steve (2009) - The Weird Brilliance of ‘Mary and Max’ online at: https://www.thewrap.com/weird-brilliance-mary-and-max-11544/  Accessed: [23/01/2019]