Review of Mary and Max (2009) by Gavran R — 22 Jan 2012

An intricately poignant claymation film about the friendship between two very unlikely people, Mary and Max pushes the envelope of what claymation can do as an art form while also being quirky, cute, and interestingly dark.

This medium has brought us everything from Wallace and Gromit to Gumby, but never has really left the realm of the childlike and vulnerable. This film also starts semi-naive with the fresh faced perspective of Mary, a chubby girl from Australia.

Her thoughts are often depressive and yet original, and have the spirit of a child. Friendless and always ignored by her alcoholic mother and patiently apathetic father, she sends off a letter to a stranger in New York to ask her most intriguing questions.

Soon a correspondence develops between herself and Max, an obese atheist Asperger's patient. Though both are separated by so much in their lives they still find common ground as both are friendless, lovers of junk food (including sweetened condensed milk) and have childlike sensibilities.

Over time this changes, but destruction envelops both of their lives, only having each other to lean on metaphorically. Amazing things keep happening to both, sometimes awful and sometimes amazing and life changing.

Though both go through a rollercoaster of emotional distress and loneliness there is hope and advice to be given. Every one of Mary's unfortunate problems is solved by the wizened naivety of Max and in turn Mary constantly helps out her clueless friend, who's disorder keeps him awkward and confused.

The film covers the seventies and into the present, always hopeful, eccentric, and downright uplifting. Many of the characters go through their own transformations by association, and we get to see a bevy of different stages in the lives of two certainly different individuals.

The care and concern they have for one another though they've never met is something that we don't get to see every day, and though many believe it's sappy and unrealistic, the depths of depression and aloneness are easy to relate to.

It's edgy for what it is and tried to accomplish and the message of friendship was one never covered in such an interesting ways. Beautiful, beautiful film.