Adam Elliot's Mary and Max (2009) has received a preliminary release date: June 15. Winner of Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Courtesy of MPI Home Video.
The opening night slot at Sundance is customarily considered one of doom, and in that tradition "Mary and Max" is a disappointment, though just a mild one. The film, animator Adam Elliot's first feature, has many of the elements and motifs of his splendid, award-winning shorts -- a distinctive portraiture-inspired look, heavy voiceover, characters with mental or physical disabilities, misspellings, insulting newspaper headlines, accident-prone pets -- while demonstrating why, as it is, Elliot's style is better kept to a briefer form.
"Mary and Max" flips between the lives of its title characters, a lonely seven-year-old Australia girl with a birthmark on her forehead and neglectful parents and an equally lonely 44-year-old obese New York man with Asperger's. Mary picks Max's name by chance out of the phonebook and writes to ask him questions about America, and despite the fact that she unknowingly pushes him into several anxiety attacks, the two establish a pen-pal friendship that lasts decades, over the deaths of family members and friends, stays in the mental ward, a marriage, a lottery win and the publication of a book. Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman voice the pair, with Barry Humphries intoning the narration.
Characters don't talk much in Adam Elliot's stop motion creations, not to each other. They instead often just look to the camera as the narrative happens to them, with seemingly no more say in the matter than anyone watching -- they're reenacting someone else's memory of them. Like animated snapshots, scenes pass by, adding up to whole lives that neither equal easy anecdotes nor drift by without a point. Elliot has an eye for odd little dark or droll details that give his stories a gleam of melancholy genuineness. But in "Mary and Max," those details stack up until his characters become grotesques: Mary's father drowns while treasure hunting at the beach; Max accidentally kills a mime when his A/C unit falls out of the wall of his crumbling apartment; Mary's husband runs off with a New Zealand sheep farmer. The story acquires a macabre undertone that's not suited to its own rambling structure. Mary and Max begin as believable misfits with not-outlandish misfortunes in their lives, but soon start to seem like something out of Edward Gorey.
There are moments of loveliness -- Australia is done in warm shades of brown, Mary's favorite color, and New York in greyscale with splashes of red -- and others of emotional wonder, from the watching of a treasured cartoon in the rain to an improvised gift of tears. But "Mary and Max" does feel like a short that continues on for an hour and a half with little forward motion, until you reach the somber but not unexpected ending and realize how far you've come.
This film is just fantastic, and I'll be picking up the BD for sure. I stand firm on my position that it should have at least been nominated for the Best Animated Film Oscar as well. It was the most mature of all of the animated features in the category, and it was better than most of them. I loved Up so much so I likely would have still given the win to that, but I loved M&M so much that had it been nominated, and had it won over Up, it wouldn't have been a situation where I was angry over it or anything.
So excited this is getting a BD release. I checked Best Buy's website and they're even going to be carrying it in-store, which is not something I would have expected for such a low-profile new release.
So excited this is getting a BD release. I checked Best Buy's website and they're even going to be carrying it in-store, which is not something I would have expected for such a low-profile new release.
That is definitely not something I was expecting! I pre-ordered from Amazon, as I didn't think Best buy would be carrying it in store.
Well, I have seen it once and I can't wait to watch it again. It certainly isn't the most uplifting movie of all time, and it's far from Disney-type fare, but I think it is rewatchable for sure. I think it depends on your personal tastes, but it is worthy of multiple watches for sure.
I really wish they had added Harvie Krumpet and everything from that DVD to this release though. I'd love to see that on BD as well and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
I really wish they had added Harvie Krumpet and everything from that DVD to this release though. I'd love to see that on BD as well and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Harvie Krumpet will be in a special feature, but I don't know if it will be in HD or if there are any other features.
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