Mary and Max

Animated Hollywood flicks transport us into magical worlds where dragons fly, romances bloom and endings are forever happy. Mary & Max, a feature film debut by Australian animator Adam Elliot, is not Hollywood. It is a captivating journey of a friendship between two improbable people: Mary Daisy Dinkle [the voice of Tony Collette] is 8 years old at the start of their friendship and lives in Melbourne, Australia; Max Horowitz [the voice of Philip Seymour Hoffman], fat and forty, lives in New York.

Mary & Max opens like a book. The narrator [Barry Humphries, better known as TV’s Dame Edna Everage] chronicles the enduring friendship of two unalike, unlikely people, spanning two continents and 20 years. We accompany Mary from childhood to middle age, Max from middle to old age.

We first encounter Mary’s uncaring world in her Melbourne suburb, gloomy hues of brown evoking her melancholic mood. Friendless, the target of schoolmates’ scorn, Mary is ignored by both her chain-smoking, sherry-nipping, kleptomaniacal mum and dull dad who stuffs dead birds for a hobby.

Mary randomly comes upon Max when she picks his name out of a NY telephone directory. Her letter panics Max. Anxiety prone and lonely, he can’t relate to people, can’t hold a job, lives alone with Hal, his one-eye cat, and Henry, his stupefied goldfish. He frets over everything and nothing. He resents his fit psychotherapist, since his passion for ‘chocolate hot dogs’ has prevailed over Overeaters Anonymous.

Mary and Max become pen pals, bond over their shared love for chocolate, bizarre anecdotes from their isolated lives and amusing insights into the world they struggle to fit into. Both have come across something neither ever had: a friend.

Despite this, Mary & Max has no Hollywood magic and predictability. As the story unfolds through the ‘70s to the ‘80s and ‘90s, unexpected afflictions occur. Mary’s inapt boyfriend dumps her, her parents die, other disasters befall each. Max is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome [a form of autism]. Mary determines to find a cure.

Mary & Max is a touching exploration of human foibles, a poignant look at life’s afflictions: loneliness, obesity, sexuality, anxiety, agoraphobia, autism, kleptomania, alcoholism, psychiatry, sexual and religious differences, trust and death. At first we feel detracted by the outré look and dread surrounding of these grotesque clay-made characters, but as they open their hearts, we are captivated by the brilliant and subversive story and the tragic-comic side of life.

As misunderstandings get patched up, the two resume confidences about forgiveness and imperfections. If their world is imperfect, so too are those who inhabit it. It becomes important to mend what has been broken. When Mary finally enters Max’s desolate NY room, she restores the bond which has tied them throughout the years in a long rewarding friendship.

Hilarious, poignant Mary & Max is impregnated with kind of humour and sadness that draws us all in. (88 mins.)

Afra Botteri