“When I was young, I invented an invisible friend called Mr Ravioli. My psychiatrist says I don’t need him anymore, so he just sits in the corner and reads.”

The Scoop: 2009 NR, directed by Adam Elliot and starring Toni Collete, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Bethany Whitmore and Barry Humphries

Tagline: No tagline

Summary Capsule: A young Australian girl and an American man strike up a pen pal friendship that spans the globe and the rest of their lives.

Heather’s rating: 9 out of 10 bottles of cooking sherry.

Heather’s review: I don’t know what it would take to make me rate a movie perfectly. That’s one of the draws I always had for this site: The refusal to use stars or thumbs up or what have you to tell someone how good a movie is. The one thing our Mutant Meter had going for it (R.I.P) is that it reflected how we non-professional critics look at movies. They aren’t easily qualified as “good” or “bad” (except Epic Movie. I hate you, Epic Movie. I hate you so much), but are, rather, a sum of their parts.

Mary and Max is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I have little to complain about, so while part of me wants to rate it a perfect 10 out of 10 bottles of cooking sherry (the highest honor any movie could hope to receive) I held back and left it at a still-impressive 9.

The story is bleak, full of dark humor, and so emotional that I cried twice. I do not, I repeat do NOT cry at movies. I also don’t laugh at them often, which has led to the speculation that I’m an emotionless robot clone that Justin created during one of his particularly maniacal (and gender-bending) moods. I’m not here to confirm or deny those rumors, so search for your answers elsewhere, human.

Now about that bleak story! Mary Daisy Dinkle is an only child who lives in Australia with her alcoholic, kleptomaniac mother and an emotionally distant father. She has a large brown birthmark on her forehead, which gets her bullied and teased at school. One day she peruses an international phone book at the post office, while her mother stuffs envelopes up her dress, and picks out one of the funniest names she finds. On a whim Mary decides to write a letter to Maxwell J. Horowitz in New York in order to find out what life in America is like, advice on dealing with difficult situations, and to send him some chocolate.

Max is a forty-something year-old atheist Jewish man who lives alone in his apartment. He is obese, depressed, and suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. The latter makes it very difficult for him to cope with day to day situations outside of his home. He has little social interaction, save his elderly and mostly blind landlady, and the members of his over-eaters therapy group. When he receives Mary’s letter and gift, he finds someone to talk to about his problems and, more importantly, someone who wants his help dealing with hers. He sends back his letter and accompanying gift of some favorite chocolate treats, and a deep bond is formed between them.

It’s fantastic to see how Mary grows and changes throughout the friendship, and to witness Max’s unintentionally hilarious answers to her questions of how to deal with bullies and where babies come from. Eventually there is a major test of their friendship, and to watch the effect of it on both of them is heartbreaking.

I can’t recall the last time I was so anxious to see a situation resolved as when this happened. I was, for lack of a better cliche, on the edge of my seat hoping that Max could take a giant step in his life by accepting imperfection in people and making himself vulnerable again to regain a friendship that had all but been destroyed.

It’s impressive to find a movie that can handle such heavy subjects as friendship, loneliness, mental illness, and love with so much respect and humor. This film is gorgeous and tragic, and the balance it achieves between tragedy and comedy will make you feel for the little clay people as if they were alive. Remember, there’s no shame in blubbering over the plight of puppets.

As if all of that weren’t enough, this movie is the best example of claymation I have ever seen. The level of detail and emotion of the characters, the effects, and delicate touches like leaving fingerprints in the clay, tell another story about how much devotion the team had to to this film.

Mary and Max is masterfully sculpted, voiced, scripted, and scored. Don’t miss this movie, or the Head Of All The Chocolate won’t give you any candy when you get to Heaven.

Intermission:

• The director loosely based this story on his own life, as he has had a pen-pal in New York since he was a child. He is an atheistic Jewish gentleman who suffers from Asperger’s.
• All of the water effects were created with personal lubricant.
• The street, Lamington Drive, is a play on words: Lamingtons are an Australian cake. They are sometimes used in fund-raising activities by schools and other organizations, whereby they are sold in bulk. Such activities are referred to as ‘Lamington Drives’.
• Principal photography lasted over 57 weeks, using 133 separate sets, 212 puppets, and 475 miniature props, including a fully functional Underwood typewriter. This took 9 weeks to design and build.
• There are very, very few straight lines in the movie, with the intention being to give it more of a handmade look. It’s for the same reason that fingerprints were left in the clay.
• It’s frustrating to have to point this out, but this movie is N-O-T for children.
• The whole soundtrack is great, and this movie has made me a fan of The Penguin Cafe.

Groovy Quotes:

Max: When I was young, I invented an invisible friend called Mr Ravioli. My psychiatrist says I don’t need him anymore, so he just sits in the corner and reads.

Max: [writing to Mary] Have you ever been a communist? Have you ever been attacked by a crow or similar large bird?

Young Mary: [about her neighbor] He’s scared of outside, which is a disease called homophobia.

Max: Unfortunately, in America, babies are not found in cola cans. I asked my mother when I was four, and she said they came from eggs laid by rabbis. If you aren’t Jewish, they’re laid by Catholic nuns. If you’re an atheist, they’re laid by dirty, lonely prostitutes.

Max: I have also invented some new words. “Confuzzled”, which is being confused and puzzled at the same time, “snirt”, which is a cross between snow and dirt, and “smushables”, which are squashed groceries you find at the bottom of the bag. I have sent a letter to the Oxford Dictionary people asking them to include my words but I have not heard back.

Narrator: Max hoped Mary would write again. He’d always wanted a friend. A friend that wasn’t invisible, a pet or rubber figurine.

Max: Not much has happened since I last wrote except for my manslaughter charges, lotto win, and Ivy’s death.

Narrator: Born in a barn in the hills of Boronia, Ralph lived a long life and died of pneumonia.

Max: [writing to Mary] Dr. Bernard Hazelhof said if I was on a desert island, then I would have to get used to my own company – just me and the coconuts. He said I would have to accept myself, my warts and all, and that we don’t get to choose our warts. They are part of us and we have to live with them. We can, however, choose our friends, and I am glad I have chosen you.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Any of the Wallace and Gromit stories.
• Harvey Krumpit
• Up