Mary and Max Movie Review
Adam Elliot Writes, Directs Claymation Film for Melodrama, Icon
Oct 15, 2009
Aussie writer/director Adam Elliot - best known for his dark series Relatives - makes his feature film debut with Mary and Max, which extends his tragicomic Claymation style to 90 minutes. It's a wonderfully black comedy, filled with heartwarming and wrenching moments, but nearly collapses in the 3rd Act.
Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana Voice Roles in Adam Elliot's Mary and Max
Eight-year-old Mary (voiced by Toni Collette) is a friendless little girl living in Melbourne, cursed with neglectful parents and a massive birthmark - "the colour of poo" - in the middle of her forehead. Due to her interest in how babies are made - she's been told they're found in beer glasses - she finds a Pen Pal in the equally lonely Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an overeating loner living in New York. A tentative friendship grows between these two people from different continents, fueled by chocolate, Noblets and a desire for human contact. As these two characters grow (in every direction possible), their interactions change each other in surprising ways.
Here's a quick summation of writer/director Elliot's humour: alcoholic dies from consuming too much sherry = tragedy. Alcoholic dies from mistaking a bottle of embalming fluid for sherry = funny.
You can see why this flick can be an acquired taste (sorry) but, for those who appreciate their comedy black (guilty), Elliot finds the funny in things others find gruesome. The audience feels sympathy for Mary's continued tragedies, but still laughs at how director Elliot makes them happen, an impressive trick. The Claymation process (popularized by Aardman Animation's Wallace and Gromit series) is used to great effect here: the characters are beautifully rendered, with great imagination and attention to detail.
The violence is about as graphic as your average Looney Tunes cartoon (gotta love the mime doing a Wile E. Coyote impression just before getting squashed by a falling air conditioner) but there's a good reason why this flick's rated 14A.
The real revelation here is the voice acting. Hoffman, Collette and Bana are virtually unrecognizable in their roles, which helps sell the flick. Philip Seymour Hoffman gets special kudos for a flawless Jewish New Yorker accent.
Problems? Let's leave aside the fact that Asperger Syndrome wasn't first considered an actual disease until the mid-1990's, which hurts this flick's cred (you have to get the reality right if you want your audience to believe the fantasy).
However, what nearly kills this film is Mary's sudden decline in the 3rd Act, prompted by Max's sudden refusal to communicate with her. Elliot maintains the over-the-top occurrences that populated the first sections, but trying to play them nearly pulls you out of the film. That scene also threatens to overshadow the final sequence, when Mary and Max finally meet one another (so to speak). It's a beautifully touching moment, but it would have been stronger if the previous section had been better handled.
While we're nitpicking, there's a continuity problem involving a bottle of Valium: Chekhov's Gun is pulled off the mantlepiece, loaded and fired, but we never learn what happened to the bullet.
The Final Analysis
Mary and Max is a wonderful feature film debut from Adam Elliot. Filled with memorable characters and a compelling story, it survives its 3rd Act bobble to retain a softness beneath its blackly comedic heart.
It gets an 8/10.
(This movie was screened at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival)
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