Animation is often regarded as a children’s medium. Of course, this is a pretty ridiculous attitude to have- it’s like claiming that only accountants are allowed to watch game shows. Just like live-action film and TV, animation is capable of telling all sorts of stories, aimed at all sorts of age groups. (The same can be said of comics, too- a novel doesn’t become any less valid just because it contains both words and pictures.) Directed by Adam Elliot, Mary and Max is a claymation film that shows how the medium doesn’t have to be restricted to just saccharine kids’ shows or vulgar shock “humour” that panders to the lowest common denominator. It is a dark comedy that manages to be both mature and sincere, not to mention genuinely touching. It’s difficult for me to find any fault with it.
There are many films about outcasts forming an unlikely friendship- perhaps too many -and because of this, many of them end up coming across as kind of unoriginal, with forced quirkiness and the characters delivering some sort of trite message about being yourself. Luckily, there’s nothing trite about Mary and Max. Like with Harold and Maude (which it definitely owes a huge debt to) and Trust, the emotions found in Mary and Max are all totally genuine. This is largely because both protagonists have a lot more to them than just quirkiness, and we get to see them mature and develop as the story progresses. In the beginning, Mary is only eight years old, but the film doesn’t restrict itself to that one part of Mary’s life. The audience gets to see how their friendship can last over many years, and how it changes, too. It isn’t always pleasant, and sometimes hurts them, or brings up unpleasant truths, but ultimately their correspondence survives all of that. Both characters are treated with humour and sympathy, and that combination really makes the film worth watching.
Another reason why Mary and Max works is that it perfectly balances the dark and light elements. In that way, it avoids any tweeness, and the world it portrays is much more believable, despite how stylised it is. Unlike a “gross out” show, it doesn’t revel in the grotesque, but it doesn’t avoid it, either. One of the film’s most important messages is that you need to accept yourself, warts and all, and this is how the worlds that Mary and Max inhabit are presented to us. They might seem ugly to us on the surface, but they’re no more ugly than our own, really. People are imperfect; they fart and have birth marks the colour of poo. And people also die. There are quite a number of deaths to be found in Mary and Max, and these are usually some of the funniest scenes. Moments like the one where Max commits manslaughter keep everything from becoming too sickeningly-sweet. Some of the darkness is used for more dramatic purposes, though. Both characters experience genuine pain and emptiness in their lives, and I find the film very commendable because of that. The audience gets to see them as three-dimensional human beings rather than stock characters, and it makes the lighter moments all the more effective.
I only saw Mary and Max yesterday, and yet it’s already become one of my favourite films. It’s like if Harold and Maude was made by Aardman Animation. I never lost interest in it for a moment. The animation is detailed and beautiful to look at, and obviously done with a great amount of care and attention. The use of colours (Mary’s world is sepia-stained, while Max’s is in black-and-white) is really imaginative, and gives both Australia and America their own individual atmosphere. The plot goes in all sorts of unexpected, yet satisfying, directions and as for the soundtrack, it suits the film perfectly. 4/5.
