Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.5

Mary and Max Blu-ray Movie Review

More brilliant animation for grown-ups.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater June 18, 2010

I’m going to leave Pixar out of this—they genuinely try to make films for everyone—but, currently, the vast majority of animated movies are 1.) massively big-budgeted CGI productions, 2.) that tell emotionally weightless stories about talking animals, and 3.) are targeted squarely at the under-12 set. And fair enough, there’s definitely a place for those kinds of films. Recently, though, while mainstream animation has gone bigger, glossier, and more inherently impersonal, there’s been a resurgence of the medium, with independent filmmakers, as a tool to tell more mature, intimate stories, from the coming-of-age trauma of Persepolis to the wartime docu-drama of Waltz With Bashir. Other films, like Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, have co-opted the low- budget, handmade look of old-school “claymation” to enhance their storybook aesthetics. Mary and Max, a tender stop-motion masterpiece by Australian director Adam Elliot (Harvie Krumpet), does both—not only are the sets and characters charmingly hand-crafted, but they’re put in the service of an emotionally weighty story, a bittersweet tale of two unlikely friends.

Max Jerry Horowitz, MOMO-JAMA...

Those friends are 8-year-old Mary Dinkles (Bethany Whitmore and, later, Toni Colette), a nebbish, bespectacled Australian girl with a birthmark on her forehead “the color of poo,” and Max Jerry Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a 44-year-old obese Jewish atheist with Asperger syndrome who frets and sweats through an anxiety-filled existence in New York City. When Mary goes to the post-office with her kleptomaniac mother—a Dame Edna look-alike who frequently gets trashed on sherry while her husband does bird taxidermy out in the shed—she picks Max’s name out of a phone book at random and decides to write him a letter, asking him where babies come from. (In Australia, fathers find them in glasses of beer, apparently.) Max writes an insanely long and awkward reply, detailing every job he’s ever had—Frisbee printer, garbage collector, Army number cruncher, communist—and giving Mary a random run-down of his oddball habits and beliefs. Thus begins their 22-year correspondence, which the film follows from 1976 to 1998. Along the way, Mary grows up—ever awkward, mostly friendless, sometimes self-destructive—and Max grows fatter and more socially inept as he suffers through a series of emotional traumas.

While a pen-pal relationship with a morbidly overweight middle-aged Jewish atheist Manhattanite with Asperger syndrome sounds like the premise for an SNL sketch—with the late great Chris Farley taking the lead, presumably—director Adam Eliott invests his story with uncommon tenderness. And this is probably because it is his story. For over twenty years, Eliott has maintained a real snail-mail friendship with a MOMA-JAMA—yes, that’s my acronym for Morbidly Overweight Middle-Aged Jewish Atheist Manhattanites with Aspergers; someone had to invent one —and the details of this correspondence are the basis of the film’s pre-title “based on a true story” tag. Of course, I have no way of knowing how much of Max, the character, is rooted in actuality, but many of his quirks—his love of chocolate hotdogs, his inability to cry, the bizarre factoids he collects—have a distinct “truth is stranger than fiction” vibe. Nearly the entire film is composed of Max and Mary’s reactions to one another’s letters, and though this may seem like a dull epistolary exercise, we’re completely drawn into the characters’ emotional landscapes. Like any friendship, these two have their ups and downs—Mary’s letters frequently send Max into fits of near-comatose anxiety—but they become one another’s literal lifelines, each a constant for the other in a world that seems to have abandoned them both.

If all of that sounds dreadfully serious, it is and it isn’t. There’s a lot of humor in the film—visual cleverness, cheeky wordplay (like when young Mary confuses “agoraphobia” with “homophobia), and admittedly juvenile fart gags—but most of the laughs are tragically comic. The tone here, especially toward the end, is of wistful, appreciative sadness, joy and sorrow all at once. Achieving that kind of emotional resonance is a true feat in any medium, but the fact that Mary and Max accomplishes this with clay and plasticine puppets is a testament to both the strength of the storytelling and the skills of the animators. The film took five years to make, and aside from some digital manipulation to remove wires and add composite effects—like smoke—into a scene, every single set, every character model, every prop, was captured in-camera, with no CGI assistance. Elliot’s visual style—like a darker version of the world of Wallace and Gromit — is spectacular, with chunky, off-kilter buildings and squat characters that move with deft comic timing. And the vocal performances are just as animated. Bethany Whitmore and Toni Colette— young and adult Mary, respectively—both channel a desperate want to be accepted, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant, huffing as Max’s body strains to move and sputtering herky-jerky sentences that come out in fits and starts. I’d love to see a live-action version of his performance here, but Mary and Max is a stop-motion film that couldn’t be told any other way.

Mary and Max Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

From Wallace and Gromit and Fantastic Mr. Fox to Madame Tutli-Putli on the recently released Animation Express collection, every single stop-motion production I've seen on Blu-ray has completely wowed me visually. Mary and Max is no exception, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded digital-to-digital transfer that's superlative in every way. Shot using 22-megapixel DSLR still cameras, the film is tack-sharp, strikingly dimensional, and almost entirely noiseless. There's just a ridiculous amount of high-definition detail to be seen here—the extremely fine weft of Mary's dress, every minute aspect of the hand-crafted sets, even the fingerprints left on the clay by the animators. As you'll notice from the screenshots, the film is intentionally devoid of strong color—Mary's world is almost entirely sepia-shaded, while Max's New York is a stark monochrome—but the tones are exceptionally rich and the gradation of the contrast is strong, with bright highlights and dark, shadowy blacks. The only exceptions to the muted color scheme are objects that are in some way important to Max, which are nearly always red—the pompom Mary sends him, a flirty woman's lips, etc. The lighting of the sets is accomplished beautifully as well, making for an image with true depth and presence, and none of it is spoiled by compression artifacts, banding, or aliasing. I simply can't find any fault here; Mary and Max is a stunning experience on Blu-ray.

Mary and Max Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As you might imagine of a film about a pair of pen pals, Mary and Max's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is very dialogue-driven, with lots of voice-over narration from Barry Humphries and much letter-reading from our two leads. I've already mentioned how wonderful the voice acting is, but I should also say that it's reproduced perfectly here—articulate, detailed, and balanced high in the mix. This is especially important since Max—as voiced by Phillip Seymour Hoffman—has an anxious, grumbly mumble that could otherwise be difficult to hear. The foley sounds captured for the film are also clean and effective, from the clatter of typewriter keys to the roar of an incoming tsunami. While most of the sonic action happens up front—with a definable separation between the three front channels—the surround speakers are sometimes called up to pump out ambience, like street sounds and rolling thunder, or the occasional cross-channel effect. The diverse soundtrack—from various musicians and orchestral groups—has plenty of heft and presence, and often fills up the soundfield when the effects aren't. This isn't a terribly active mix—then again, this isn't an action film—but it sounds great and it's clear that a lot of artistry went into the sound design and music selection.

Mary and Max Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Commentary with Writer/Director Adam Elliot
Adam Elliot gives a quiet, modest, low-energy track that's nonetheless jam-packed with how'd-they- do-that-style trivia. Did you know, for instance, that the grass in the film was teddy bear fur sprinkled with coffee granules? Or that nearly all the water in the film—from oceans to tear drops— was actually sexual lubricant? Ah, the tricks of the trade.

Making Mary and Max (SD, 15:48)
Okay, so this is more of a mockumentary than a documentary, a series of The Office-style vignettes lampooning different aspects of the production process. It's pretty funny, actually.

Behind-the-Scenes (SD, 8:15)
This is more of your traditional "making of" documentary, with a special emphasis on the set construction, the models, and the benefits of shooting digitally rather than on film.

Alternate Scenes (SD, 2:01)
Includes two alternate scenes that much more grim than what appears in the final cut.

Casting Call (SD, 1:37)
Here, we get to see Bethany Whitmore reading for the role of young Mary.

Harvie Krumpet Short Film (SD, 22:03)
The best bonus on this disc is undoubtedly Harvie Krumpet, Adam Elliot's Academy-Award winning animated short, narrated by Geoffrey Rush, about a character that—in some ways—seems to be a precursor to Max.

US Trailer (SD, 2:25)

International Trailer (SD, 2:09)

Mary and Max Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A sad elegy to the unlikely friendship of two people vastly separated by age, location, and mental faculty, Mary and Max is a strikingly original stop-motion feature, one that's meant more for wistful adults than precocious kids. (The film is unrated, but it would probably be a PG-13.) If you already have Fantastic Mr. Fox, the Wallace and Gromit set, and the Animation Express collection on Blu-ray, this should definitely be the next addition to your high definition stop-motion library. It looks perfect, sound great, and comes with a strong selection of bonus features, including Adam Eliott's Academy Award-winning short film Harvie Krumpet. Highly recommended!