Mary and Max – “Comforting Depression”

Written and Directed by Adam Elliot

An idealist would say that every person born has a soul mate. You could go almost your entire life and not meet this person, but somehow there was always someone out there for you. Mary and Max, the first full length animated film from Academy Award winning writer/director Adam Elliot (2004’s best animated short ‘Harvie Krumpet’) is an odd subscriber to this ideology. It follows a young girl (the aforementioned Mary, voiced by Toni Collette) living in 1978 Australia who is ugly, poor, and neglected. Her mother is an alcoholic and kleptomaniac, her father a factory worker who would rather spend time with his road kill taxidermy. One day while in a post office with her mother, who is stealing stationary, she flips through a New York City phonebook and writes to a random person desperately asking if they will be her only friend. On the other end is Max (a heavily accented Philip Seymour Hoffman), an overweight, neurotic, and lonely stereotypical Jew living in New York during the ‘Taxi Driver’ era, as I affectionately call it. What follows is an often odd, sometimes hilarious and overwhelmingly sad series of communiqués between the two.

The relationship between Mary and Max is exceedingly bizarre. They send each other information only they would find important about their lives, and trinkets that only one another would appreciate. The comedy of the film always comes from a dark place, like Mary’s naiveté about the sad realities of existence. For Max, who has much more life experience, humor lives in the way he can’t understand the order of the world, from evolving popular culture to romantic relationships. Death and sorrow are common themes in their lives and letters. Max takes everything in stride- being rich is the same as a replacing a dead goldfish in his singular view.

After a period where it finally seems like joy has finally come for both our protagonists, the final act just gets bleaker than what preceded it. (Spoiler- What better way to learn about a pregnancy than during a suicide?) The best thing that can be said about the ending is that it gives us hope that is consistent with the rest of the film. As an audience, our affection for the characters and their circumstances goes hand in hand with their tragedy. Unfortunately, the residual feeling left behind by it all is the sorrow and not the joy. Though I’m no stranger to black comedy, this was a bit much.

This has been a strong year for stop-motion animation. ‘Coraline’, ‘The Fantastic Mr. Fox’ and Mary and Max all contribute nicely, and have made the short list of the 20 contenders to be nominated for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Oscars (stranger is the presence of so many stop motion films- more than the number of hand drawn contenders). Unfortunately, compared to the dazzling animation of the aforementioned Coraline, Mary and Max seems to dwell in a bygone era. While Coraline draws on the past but makes strides ahead for the development of the medium (in addition to the subtleties of the genre it is the first stop motion film to ever be made entirely in 3-D), Mary and Max feels stuck in a primitive animation style more suited to the 1980’s. Sync-mouth animation is rare in the film, and seams in the doll where pieces have been replaced are apparent.

That isn’t to say the film looks “old” or “cheap”. On the contrary, the design has its charms as well. Each of two locales central to the film is portrayed in their own sad color scheme. Australia is a sepia wasteland, feeling sparse and windblown. New York City is black and white, a noir-esque landscape of endless dirty buildings and ugly people. Both spaces excellently look and feel like alienating landscapes that reflect the feelings of our protagonists. And when an “alien” color is interjected, it shines.

The film ultimately is a peculiar exercise. It’s not that it is good or bad, per se, but I ask myself “who is this film for?” If you want a clever and humorous bleak film about two lost souls and enjoy old stop motion animation, check out ‘Mary and Max’. If not, look elsewhere.



*** Three Stars - Take it or leave it

Mary and Max is now available in the U.S.A. On Demand from a number of cable providers. See the list here.