- Originally published March 15th 2009.

Clay animation is quite possibly the most painstaking process of filmmaking, especially when you consider it took Adam Elliot five years to make Mary & Max, his first feature length clay-animated film since 2004′s Oscar winning short Harvie Krumpet.  It’s a process few left in the industry still have the patience and passion to undertake, two qualities that Adam Elliot infinitely exerts. Mary & Max is unquestionably a labour of such love, one that has proven to be well worth the time and effort.  The animation is superb, characters endearing, humour abundant and topical themes honestly and thoroughly explored.

The first thing you’ll notice, and appreciate, is the childish frankness used to explore the very real issues in Mary & Max. Via Barry Humphries superb narration, 8 year-old Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced by Bethany Whitmore as a child, Toni Collette as an adult) is introduced to us a lonely Australian girl whose “eyes are the colour of muddy water and a birth mark the colour of poo”. However, beneath amusing narration and witty visual humour, Elliot is really providing a profound characterisation of a deeply troubled and depressed girl. Mary’s mother is a chain-smoking alcoholic, while her Dad can barely keep the family afloat working at a factory that staples together the string between tea bags and their labels. Desperate for a friend, Mary randomly selects a name from the New York phone directory to write a letter to, whom turns out to be forty four year-old obese hermit Max Jerry Horovitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

When we cross to Max’s discovery of the letter in a gothic New York, the brown hues of Australia are replaced with the grey, black, white and reds reminiscent of Sin City.  The predominantly colourless and ominous cityscape is blatantly symbolic of Max’s melancholy and isolation; like Mary, he too is without friends because of his inability to see eye-to-eye with a society that often perplexes him. Mary and Max soon become pen-pals, and for the next twenty years, provide a listening ear to each other’s problems as well as sharing in each other’s (few) successes.  Regardless of the gloomy themes, Mary & Max is a heart-warming tale overall because it tells a tale of two lonely souls becoming best friends, despite being continents and generations apart.

The film goes back and forth between the two distinct settings, using the content of each letter as the basis of developing these troubled yet incredibly endearing characters. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette are perfectly cast as the voices of Max and Mary, both personifying their characters with masterful sincerity. As Mary grows older and Max wider, the subtle changes in their tone is indicative of their characters latest struggle, of which there is many. Elliot doesn’t hold back when it comes to depicting society’s most confronting issues;  depression, vanity,  religion, obesity, alcoholism, mental disability and suicide are all in the mix, yet treated with great honesty and without  judgement.  Elliot somehow squeezes it all into an 90 minute time frame, which surprisingly feels much longer, perhaps due to the narrative simplicity  and a slight tendency for the film to drag out certain scenes.

Clay animation must possess the ability to make dark themes feel more amicable, as Mary & Max is also consistently laugh-out-loud funny. Distinctly  similar in style, Elliot’s animation  has come a long way since Harvie Krumpet. His attention to detail is astounding; the character animation is rich with expression and personality.  Each character’s features are hugely overstated, often to comical effect, with their flaw’s front and centre. Yet the focus here is firmly on one’s inner-beauty, which is where both Mary and Max win over our hearts with ease.

Verdict:

If American Beauty director Sam Mendes teamed up with the makers of Wallace & Gromit at Aardman Animations, the product might look something like Mary & Max.  Adam Elliot’s ambitious first feature-length clay animation is delightful.  The film perfectly uses visual wit to help tackle an array of very real societal issues, which are honestly and convincingly explored. It’s a big call to make this early in the year, but if Pixar’s upcoming film Up isn’t up to Wall-E standards, Adam Elliot might just be on his way back to the Oscar podium in 2010.

Read our exclusive interview with mary and Max director Adam Elliot here!

Mary & Max opens in Australia on the 9th of April.

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