Mary and Max

( 3 )

Overview

Academy Award-winning Harvie Krumpet director Adam Elliot returns to the world of clay animation with this simple tale of the innocent correspondence between a portly eight year old girl from the suburbs of Melbourne and a morbidly obese, middle-aged Jewish New Yorker suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. On the surface it would seem that Mary (Toni Collette) and Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman) would have little in common, but over the course of twenty years, the unlikely pen pals exchange letters discussing ...
See more details below
Blu-ray
$29.99
BN.com price
Pick Up In Store

Pick Up In Store

Reserve and pick up in 60 minutes at your local store

Other sellers (Blu-ray)
  • All (15) from $16.49   
  • New (13) from $17.72   
  • Used (2) from $16.49   

More About This Product

Overview

Academy Award-winning Harvie Krumpet director Adam Elliot returns to the world of clay animation with this simple tale of the innocent correspondence between a portly eight year old girl from the suburbs of Melbourne and a morbidly obese, middle-aged Jewish New Yorker suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. On the surface it would seem that Mary (Toni Collette) and Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman) would have little in common, but over the course of twenty years, the unlikely pen pals exchange letters discussing everything from taxidermy, trust, pets, religion, obesity, autism, agoraphobia, alcoholism, and just about any other topic that comes to mind as they sit down and put pen to paper. Barry Humphries and Eric Bana provide additional voices.
Read More Show Less

Special Features

US trailer; International trailer; Commentary; Behind the scenes; Making of; Alternate scenes; Casting call; Short film: Harvie Krumpet
Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide - Nathan Southern
At its core, Adam Elliot's stop-motion animated opus Mary & Max may well be one of the most despairing mainstream features ever made. That isn't intended as a criticism of the film, but as an observation; despair is integral to the film's worldview. In Elliot's universe - a godless, a-humanist universe of chaos, random violence and meaningless, tragic absurdities - humans create their only real significance via intimate personal connections with one another. The earnestness of one such connection - a marvelous friendship at the center of this story - also gives the movie resounding levels of heart, soul, and hope, that effectively offset the maelstrom of suffering it perceives. The story, which Elliot loosely adapted from one of his personal experiences, concerns Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced as a child by Bethany Whitmore and as an adult by Toni Collette), a lonely, sad, bespectacled 8-year-old growing up in suburban Australia in the late 1970s. Saddled with an outrageously dysfunctional family - mother Vera (Renee Geyer) is a chain-smoking hag in granny glasses who drowns herself in sherry on a regular basis, while absentee father Noel works in a dehumanizing job at a teabag factory and bides his time stuffing the carcasses of oscine roadkill -- Mary longs for a real friend. She finds one by randomly picking a name out of the New York City phone book, and a short letter later, snags the most random of pen pals: Max Jerry Horowitz (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman). He's a sad-sack, overweight loser in his mid-40s, saddled with a history of random occupations, that include issuing subway tokens and working in a condom factory. Max, like Mary, has no friends, no loving and supportive family; his evenings consist of devouring prodigious numbers of chocolate hot dogs and attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings, where he is relentlessly accosted by a grotesque, overweight, lovelorn woman. As the years and decades roll on, Mary and Max become best friends despite the vast geographic separation between them, and spend their exchanges confessing their most intimate secrets and emotionally affecting experiences with one another. Elliot has compared this film to Alexander Payne's About Schmidt; it has the same conceit of a zero pouring his heart and soul out to a distant friend, but this is a far darker and angrier movie. The world we're presented with is unforgettable, especially for the thematic precedents it sets in animation. The director covers such areas as alcoholism, suicide, racism (the Jewish Max has traumatizing flashbacks of anti-Semitic bullying from his childhood), homelessness, electro-shock therapy, institutionalization, clinical depression and chronic loneliness. It would be devastating if the writer-director-animator didn't counterbalance the grief with the sweetness of the central relationship, or supplement the material with a marvelously wacky, way-offbeat sense of humor and visual magic that work in tandem and overwhelm the viewer. The genius lies in thousands of wondrous details and narrative developments, with sequences so finely embroidered that Elliot must certainly have spent an unholy amount of time pouring over the minutiae of each scene and character and lacing them with the inspired. The instances are almost too innumerable to mention, but two of the movie's finest moments (and biggest laughs) arrive courtesy of Max's neighbor Ivy, a prune-faced woman whose legal blindness doesn't prevent her from making Max inedible bowls of soup, and Max's pal Mister Alfonso Ravioli, who grows addicted to self-help books and finally decides to make good on his ambition to leave Max and explore the world - making Max perhaps the only individual in history to be socially abandoned by an imaginary friend. On many other occasions, Elliot tosses in throwaway gags and bits that earn a fair number of belly laughs, such as the sight that follows the disclosure of Asperger-ridden Max's inclination to take things too literally (Elliot cuts to him actually taking a seat along with him on the bus), or the sight of Mary (when she attends college as a psychology major) reading a book entitled, 'I'm Okay, You're A Homicidal Maniac.' It perhaps goes without saying, as well, (given Elliot's track record) that the characters are beautifully and meticulously rendered and animated, especially their facial expressions; they often verge on the adorable, but that works beautifully here, because it offsets the gallows humor and cruelty of many of the narrative developments. On many levels (including an identical tone and voice, and similar character designs) the film recalls the genius of Elliot's prior effort, the 30-minute Sundance Festival darling Harvie Krumpet (2003); this represents a step forward, however. Whereas Harvie, though immensely enjoyable and occasionally brilliant, seemed at best like a collection of random absurdist sketches, loosely linked by the thread of a single character, Mary & Max has a purpose for being, rooted in the aforementioned theme of spiritual and emotional salvation through connectedness with other human beings. One may or may not agree with Elliot's agnostic existentialism, but the film defies one to not feel swept up in the emotional undercurrents of the central friendship - to such a degree that when the final scene arrives, with a revelation of Mary's significance to Max, the story succeeds at touching one's heart on a deeper level than we might ever have imagined possible.
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • Release Date: 6/15/2010
  • UPC: 030306184791
  • Original Release: 2009

    • Rating:

  • Source: Ifc Independent Film
  • Region Code: A
  • Time: 1:32:00
  • Format: Blu-ray
  • Sales rank: 11,148

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Toni Collette Voice Only
Philip Seymour Hoffman Voice Only
Barry Humphries Voice Only
Eric Bana Voice Only
Bethany Whitmore Voice Only
Renee Geyer Voice Only
Ian "Molly" Meldrum Voice Only
John Flaus Voice Only, Voice Only
Julie Forsyth Voice Only, Voice Only
Technical Credits
Adam Elliot Director, Production Designer, Screenwriter
Melanie Coombs Producer
Craig Fison Art Director
Mark Gooder Executive Producer
Tom Hardart Executive Producer
Paul Hardart Executive Producer
Felicity Hardy Costumes/Costume Designer
Brooke Howden Casting
Henry Karjalainen Producer
Marion Marks Costumes/Costume Designer
Andrew McGrath Sound/Sound Designer
Bryce Menzies Executive Producer
Bill Murphy Editor
Jonathan Page Executive Producer
Peter Walker Sound/Sound Designer
Pauline Piechota Associate Producer
Leanne Smith Musical Direction/Supervision
Gerald Thompson Cinematographer
Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 3 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(2)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(1)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously
Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted August 25, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 14, 2013

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 9, 2012

    No text was provided for this review.

Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews