Written by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub
As most of you know, the Sundance Film Festival has just ended. Now that Iâm back in
Los Angeles, itâs time to post tons of clips and video interviews from this yearâs festival. Up first is âMary and Maxâ.
If you havenât yet heard of the film, âMary and Maxâ was the opening night of the festival and itâs a claymation feature film from Academy Award winning writer/director Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs. The film features the voices of Toni Collette, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries and Eric Bana. Hereâs the synopsis:
Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, âMary and Maxâ tells of a pen-pal relationship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle (Toni Collette), a chubby, lonely 8-year-old living in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia; and Max Horovitz (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a severely obese, 44-year-old Jewish man with Aspergerâs Syndrome living in the chaos of New York City.
As âMary and Maxâ chronicles Maryâs trip from adolescence to adulthood, and Maxâs passage from middle to old age, it explores a bond that survives much more than the average friendshipâs ups-and-downs. Like Elliot and Coombsâ Oscar winning animated short âHarvie Krumpetâ, âMary and Maxâ is both hilarious and poignant as it takes us on a journey that explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual differences, trust, copulating dogs, religious differences, agoraphobia and many more of lifeâs surprises.
While the film got mixed reviews, I really enjoyed it. Unlike most animated movies made in the studio system, âMary and Maxâ tells a story that no studio would touch (as you just read in the synopsis). Also, it never walks the trouble-free path. It would have been very easy for the film to be safe and offer happy answers to lifeâs difficult issuesâ¦but thatâs not this film. Instead, âMary and Maxâ tells the unusual story of two people from very different backgrounds that find one another. And once they do, each is able to make the otherâs life better.
While the film doesnât yet have distribution, weâve been provided with the trailer and some clips, so check out some of the footage now.Finally, Peyton reviewed âMary and Maxâ, click here to read it.
Mary and Max Trailer
Clip 1 â Grandpoppy Ralphâs nipples
Clip 2 â The joyâs of metal detecting
Clip 3 â When mime artists and air conditioners meets
Clip 4 â The musical typewriter