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Mary and Max

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Mary and Max It is 1976, an 8-year-old Mary Daisy Dinkle (Bethany Whitmore) is a lonely little girl living in Mount Waverley, Melbourne, Australia. Her relatively poor family cannot afford to buy her toys or nice clothing, and she is teased by children at her school due to an unfortunate birthmark on her forehead. Her father is distant and her alcoholic, kleptomaniac mother provides no support. The closest thing she has to a friend is the man for whom Mary collects mail, Len Hislop, a World War II veteran who lost his legs as a prisoner of war and has developed agoraphobia.
One day, she decides to write a letter to someone living in New York City: by pure chance she chooses Max Jerry Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman) from a telephone …show more content…

Seeing how much Max valued their friendship and how happy it made him, Mary is moved to tears of joy as the film closes.
The film is sublime. It’s funny and insightful as it creates very different worlds for its two characters, and yet it doesn’t shy away from the harsher aspects of the lives of Mary and Max.

BARRY HUMPHRIES narrates and he does it beautifully. The animation perfectly suits the story, it was five years in the making and it’s worth every minute.
Comment: I found this film very tough going- it is undoubtedly a well made film and has some clever and quirky moments. However I lost interest around halfway through the film and could not engage with the film and its clunky style. A lighter touch would have made a huge difference to the viewing experience. Perhaps as an artistic statement it deserves more than three stars but as a movie going experience it was only a little bit better than average.
The clay only gave the story more credibility, others might differ in their opinion about that, but I think if it were played by real actors it would be less believable, (saying the tale itself was based on a true story).

Love this movie. I cried a much needed cry that I wasn't able to do for

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