Mary and Max

Mary and Max
Starring: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries, Eric Bana
Director: Adam Elliot
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: Set in the mid 1970's, Mary Dinkle is a lonely, 8 year old, only child to an alcoholic Mother and a distracted Father. One day she randomly finds a name in the New York phone book and writes a letter to Max Horowitz - a fellow chocolate loving, loner. So starts a 20 year pen pal relationship between the two...

Australian cinema usually has the danger of falling into two categories: an “offbeat” comedy (see Muriels Wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert , Strictly Ballroom and even Crocodile Dundee) or something which uses the desolate landscape to fantastic effect (see Max Max, Wolf Creek,Picnic at Hanging Rock and even Crocodile Dundee again). Mary and Max takes these two facets of the antipodean film industry and fashions them into a beautiful, heartfelt and emotional claymation movie. Mary and Max may be a tough sell to the mainstream cinema going audience but it's well worth the critical adulation it is receiving.

Despite the dark twists and turns taken by Mary and Max – dealing with unrequited love, suicide, self help groups, bullying and a 15 certificate in the UK – there are life lessons in there which transcend geography and age boundaries. Because of this there have been comparison's with Harold and Maude but this film is less preoccupied with morbidity and it's humour (what would expect with Dame Edna herself Barry Humphries narrating) is more in the toilet category than the subtle.

However, rather than being a criticism this actually works for the world director Adam Elliot has created. Filled with brilliantly eccentric characters and one in which the day to day problems of a lonely 8 year old are just as important as those of an Asberger's suffering middle aged man.

Vocally, Philip Seymour Hoffman is on fantastically world weary form as Max. Each syllable he types seeming as tired and heavy as the body he is pulling around. Toni Collette as older Mary is both giddily happy and sad but underused, even when the film begins to turn as dark as the chocolate they both love so much. The real standout is young unknown Bethany Whitmore as young Mary, dealing with the death of her father and constantly being put upon by those around her, she is tragically sweet and innocent.

Clay animation is not something that is seen very often on the big screen, it's usually confined to the odd Wallace and Gromit feature at Christmas or Tony Hart's desk. It can seem twee and perhaps too childlike to deal with bigger existential issues in more than just a passing subtlety but Mary and Max hits them head on like nihilistic Play Doe. In the final third it begins to lose its way as it revels in darker territory without the laughs of the first half, but it's unlike many things you'll see this year and convinces as much as any live action feature on similar subjects.