Mary and Max (2009)
95%RT Audience Score: 92%
Awards & Nominations: NA
Mary and Max is a lovingly crafted, startlingly inventive piece of animation whose technical craft is equaled by its emotional resonance.
Mary and Max is a clay animation film that will make you laugh, cry, and question your own communication skills. It’s like if Woody Allen wrote a movie about two unlikely pen pals, but with clay figures instead of actors. The attention to detail in the universe of Mary and Max is breathtaking, and the story is both funny and sad, just like Max’s favorite chocolate. It’s a heartwarming tale of friendship, forgiveness, and love, and it will leave you wondering how two clay figures can damn near break your heart.
Production Company(ies)
Melodrama Pictures,
Distributor
NA
Release Type
Filming Location(s)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
MPAA / Certificate
Not Rated
Year of Release
2010
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Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Dolby Digital
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Aspect ratio:1.85 : 1
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Runtime:NA
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Language(s):English, Yiddish
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Streaming): Dec 22, 2009
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Barry Humphries, Bethany Whitmore, Renée Geyer, directed by Adam Elliot, written by Adam Elliot, animation, drama, friendship, letters, Australia, New York, elderly man, young girl, Jewish, loneliness, emotional resonance, clay animation, technical craft, Woody Allen, Kate Muir, Mark Fisher, Tim Robey, John Walsh, Andrew Pulver, Laurence Boyce, Guillem Martinez Oya, Daniel Gumble, Roe McDermott, Simon Miraudo, Jamie S Rich, Fiona Williams, reviewed by critics, Melanie Coombs, produced by, MPAA rating, box office performance, budget
Worldwide gross: $1,740,429
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $2,365,916
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,366
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 258,006
US/Canada gross: NA
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend:
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Max Jerry Horovitz (Voice)
Eric Bana – Damien (Voice)
Barry Humphries – Narrator (Voice)
Bethany Whitmore – Young Mary (Voice)
Renée Geyer – Vera (Voice)
Director(s)
Adam Elliot
Writer(s)
Adam Elliot
Producer(s)
Melanie Coombs
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
NA
Academy Awards
All Critics (65) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (62) | Rotten (3)
This clay animation feels as if it was written by the early Woody Allen. Actually the genius behind it is Adam Elliot, who wrote, designed and directed this eccentric, wryly funny story.
June 16, 2014 | Rating: 4/5
Kate Muir
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
Ultimately, Mary and Max is about correspondence and lack of correspondence, about how our images and fantasies about others fail to match up to what they are like, and about the constitutive gaps and misfirings in any communicational practice.
June 18, 2012
Mark Fisher
Sight & Sound
TOP CRITIC
Elliot is a talent eccentric enough to make Nick Park look like an office drone, and the serious sadness underpinning his vision only makes the humour work better.
October 22, 2010 | Rating: 4/5
Tim Robey
Daily Telegraph (UK)
TOP CRITIC
It’s a 20-year story that absorbs and beguiles, despite the ugly subject matter.
October 22, 2010 | Rating: 4/5
John Walsh
Independent (UK)
TOP CRITIC
A very odd, very unlikely animated film from Australia that manages to be sickly-cute, alarmingly grotesque, and right-on at the same time — often in the very same scene.
October 21, 2010 | Rating: 3/5
Andrew Pulver
Guardian
TOP CRITIC
Up may be a really good film, but compared to Mary and Max it’s an episode of Thundercats.
October 21, 2010 | Rating: 5/5
Laurence Boyce
Little White Lies
TOP CRITIC
A beautiful story of friendship, forgiveness, love, and humanity although the differences. A humanistic story. [Full review in Spanish]
March 6, 2021 | Rating: 4/5
Guillem Martinez Oya
Cinematismo
A film of astonishing beauty, Mary and Max is undoubtedly one of the films of the year.
November 6, 2018 | Rating: 5/5
Daniel Gumble
CineVue
Those adults brave enough to confront the perils of animation will be treated to a wise, visually unique, emotional gem of a film that will leave you wondering how two clay figures damn near broke your heart.
March 11, 2016 | Rating: 4.5/5
Roe McDermott
Hot Press
The universe that is inhabited by Mary and Max is breathtaking, and must have required years of painstaking attention to detail to forge.
October 21, 2014 | Rating: 4.5/5
Simon Miraudo
Quickflix
“Mary and Max” dares to be equally funny and sad, making it as bittersweet as Max’s favorite chocolate.
August 8, 2014 | Rating: 3/5
Jamie S. Rich
Oregonian
A deliciously sentimental film whose offbeat sensibility manages to keep it out of the realm of schmaltz.
May 30, 2014 | Rating: 4.5/5
Fiona Williams
sbs.com.au…
Plot
In the mid-1970’s, a homely, friendless Australian girl of 8 picks a name out of a Manhattan phone book and writes to him; she includes a chocolate bar. She’s Mary Dinkle, the only child of an alcoholic mother and a distracted father. He’s Max Horowitz, an overweight man with Asperger’s, living alone in New York. He writes back, with chocolate. Thus begins a 20-year correspondence, interrupted by a stay in an asylum and a few misunderstandings. Mary falls in love with a neighbor, saves money to have a birthmark removed and deals with loss. Max has a friendship with a neighbor, tries to control his weight, and finally gets the dream job. Will the two ever meet face to face?
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
Philip Seymour Hoffman provides the voice for the elderly Jewish man, Max Jerry Horovitz.
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