Two days ago, we watched another tearjerker, but really sweet and funny at the same time. Adorable, to say the least. Mary and Max is an Australian clay animation from 2009, written and directed by Adam Elliot, with already an Oscar under his belt for Harvey Krumpet, in 2003. The story is centered around a pen pal friendship in between 8 year old Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced by Bethany Whitmore, as a child, and Toni Collete, as an adult), from the Melbourne suburbs, and 40-something Max Horrowitz (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman), with Asperger’s syndrome, from New York. As it seems, it is based on a true story.
Their friendship starts from Mary’s 8 year old curiosity of whether babies in the United states come also from the beer jug, as her mama told her. Throughout the years (because we get to see Mary married, at some point), we see Max clarifying many things for Mary, even if all these growing up related memories take him from one anxiety attack to the other. But somehow Adam Elliot manages to tell these stories with such a candor that you cannot not smile and sometimes laugh when watching the movie.
For me, Mary and Max was all about how listening to someone, from time to time, and showing a bit of carrying and love go such a long way. Here’s Mary in the photo above, followed by Max’s.
I watched this a few months ago because it was streaming on Netflix. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, nor did I think it would move me almost to tears.
Same for me. And it’s a pity it lacks the publicity (it’s from 2009 and somehow I’ve never heard of it), because it’s a truly wonderful movie.
Thanks for stopping by