MARY and MAX - Review
April 20th 2009 06:03
RELEASE DATE : April 9 2009
RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes
CAST:
Mary – Toni Collette
Max – Philip Seymour Hoffman
Narrator – Barry Humphries
Damien – Eric Bana
Young Mary – Bethany Whitmore
Vera – Renee Geyer
DIRECTOR: Adam Elliot
WRITING CREDITS: Adam Elliot
DISTRIBUTOR: ICON FILMS
SYNOPSIS: Sometimes strangers make the best friends.
Mary and Max is a claymation feature film. It is a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne with little or no friends to speak of , and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger‟s Syndrome living in the chaos of New York.
Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max's friendship survives much more than the average diet of life's ups and downs. Like Harvie Krumpet, MARY AND MAX is innocent but not naďve, as it takes us on a journey that explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual difference, trust, copulating dogs, religious difference, agoraphobia and much much more.
REVIEW:
Mary and Max is unique. There has never really been anything like it before.Eager anticipation has surrounded the release of this first feature from the creators of the Academy Award® winning HARVEY KRUMPET and suffice to say the film does not let us down. While most films can be wrapped up usually in a few short months, this little masterpiece took over 57 weeks to make.
From the very opening scenes in the post office where we find Mary shopping with her kleptomaniac mother, the audience is immediately drawn into this young girl’s curious and sad life. Her initial contact with Max is delightfully amusing as she asks for answers to questions which to an adult would seem a little inane if not a little strange. Max’s reaction is delightful. Not able to cope he does what he normally does when confronted with something he cannot handle. He loses it. Finally when he composes himself and answers her letter we find that the two are in some weird and wonderful perfectly matched as friends.
Don’t get the wrong idea. Normally you would expect the audience to feel distressed and saddened about the plight of these two gloomy characters, but there is something in the way that Elliot tells the story that you cant help but find everything the two get up to as their quirky friendship ebbs and flows over the years endearing.
Yes the film does have its black moments along the way. With sepia and grey tones pervading throughout the film it is hard not to become bogged down This can be attributed to the detailed and imaginative set design and the incredible claymation. Melbourne is brown and parched, almost like it is in the middle of an eternal drought while New York is grey and gloomy with a perpetual shadow cast over the city. Every scene and every character action has been meticulously thought out including the brief homage to Dianne Arbus in the opening New York montage (Adam Elliot cites Arbus as one of his major influences).
Every emotion or lack of is beautifully created right down to the tears in the bottle. Somehow we manage to forget that this is a tale of two miserable souls struggling through what at times can be an extremely unforgiving world. Elliot elicits emotions and feelings that many of us can relate to directly. We have all at some time or other in our lives felt like the odd one out. And in doing so he helps to break down some of the taboos and inviolable subjects that exist in today’s society.
Based on Adam’s own relationship with a pen-friend in New York who ‘suffers’ from Asperger’s syndrome the film attempts to demystify the stigma attached to not only this one medical condition but a whole array of misconceptions people have when dealing with someone who is thought of by societies standards as someone weird and strange. But in a fun way. We don’t need to be made to feel sorry or sad. Everyone is unusual in some way and Mary and Max are just two people struggling like the rest of us to get through each day. They just go about it a little differently.
RANKING: 9/10
RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes
Mary – Toni Collette
Max – Philip Seymour Hoffman
Narrator – Barry Humphries
Damien – Eric Bana
Young Mary – Bethany Whitmore
Vera – Renee Geyer
Toni Collette
WRITING CREDITS: Adam Elliot
DISTRIBUTOR: ICON FILMS
Philip Seymour Hoffman
SYNOPSIS: Sometimes strangers make the best friends.
Mary and Max is a claymation feature film. It is a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne with little or no friends to speak of , and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger‟s Syndrome living in the chaos of New York.
Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max's friendship survives much more than the average diet of life's ups and downs. Like Harvie Krumpet, MARY AND MAX is innocent but not naďve, as it takes us on a journey that explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual difference, trust, copulating dogs, religious difference, agoraphobia and much much more.
REVIEW:
Mary and Max is unique. There has never really been anything like it before.Eager anticipation has surrounded the release of this first feature from the creators of the Academy Award® winning HARVEY KRUMPET and suffice to say the film does not let us down. While most films can be wrapped up usually in a few short months, this little masterpiece took over 57 weeks to make.
From the very opening scenes in the post office where we find Mary shopping with her kleptomaniac mother, the audience is immediately drawn into this young girl’s curious and sad life. Her initial contact with Max is delightfully amusing as she asks for answers to questions which to an adult would seem a little inane if not a little strange. Max’s reaction is delightful. Not able to cope he does what he normally does when confronted with something he cannot handle. He loses it. Finally when he composes himself and answers her letter we find that the two are in some weird and wonderful perfectly matched as friends.
Don’t get the wrong idea. Normally you would expect the audience to feel distressed and saddened about the plight of these two gloomy characters, but there is something in the way that Elliot tells the story that you cant help but find everything the two get up to as their quirky friendship ebbs and flows over the years endearing.
Yes the film does have its black moments along the way. With sepia and grey tones pervading throughout the film it is hard not to become bogged down This can be attributed to the detailed and imaginative set design and the incredible claymation. Melbourne is brown and parched, almost like it is in the middle of an eternal drought while New York is grey and gloomy with a perpetual shadow cast over the city. Every scene and every character action has been meticulously thought out including the brief homage to Dianne Arbus in the opening New York montage (Adam Elliot cites Arbus as one of his major influences).
Every emotion or lack of is beautifully created right down to the tears in the bottle. Somehow we manage to forget that this is a tale of two miserable souls struggling through what at times can be an extremely unforgiving world. Elliot elicits emotions and feelings that many of us can relate to directly. We have all at some time or other in our lives felt like the odd one out. And in doing so he helps to break down some of the taboos and inviolable subjects that exist in today’s society.
Based on Adam’s own relationship with a pen-friend in New York who ‘suffers’ from Asperger’s syndrome the film attempts to demystify the stigma attached to not only this one medical condition but a whole array of misconceptions people have when dealing with someone who is thought of by societies standards as someone weird and strange. But in a fun way. We don’t need to be made to feel sorry or sad. Everyone is unusual in some way and Mary and Max are just two people struggling like the rest of us to get through each day. They just go about it a little differently.
RANKING: 9/10
| 35 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
SimonC
