MARY AND MAX
4 out of 5 stars

mary: "where do babies come from in america? do they come from cola-cans?"

max: "well, 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."


and...that's just a snippet of the pen-pal relationship between mary daisy dinkle, a chubby 8 year old australian girl (voiced by toni collette) and max horowitz, an obsese middle-aged new yorker (voiced by phillip seymour hoffman). this is definitely NOT a movie meant for little kids as the topics discussed throughout their letters is not quite "appropriate" for a child... (even the events that lead up to the end are quite disturbing...)


anyway, this movie is all about friendship and how two very unlikely individuals connect through each other's writings. we get a look at each character's life, and it's pretty sad. mary is a neglected, lonely little girl who has an aloof dad and a drunk mom. she's constantly made fun of @ school, and the one friend she has is an agoraphobic wheel-chair bound neighbor named len. (oh, but she has a pet rooster named ethel!) on the other side of the globe, max is just as lonely as mary... he's got asperger's syndrome, which means he's autistic, overeats, loves to eat chocolate hotdogs. no one really understands him, nor does he because the world he sees is all very strange due to his condition...


i found this movie to be semi-disturbing and actually a very realistic portrayal of how two people connect through letter-writing. there are many humorous moments, but there are also very sad/disturbing moments... i actually really liked the clay-animiation style, as i love wallace & grommet! it's very well done, and the content is quite blunt. mary asks max some hard questions, even for a normal grown up, and it's interesting to see how he responds to them...


BTW... this was the first film shown @ last year's cannes festival, and actually received RAVE reviews from critics who attended... i have to agree. :)