A Beautiful Story of Friendship in A Clay Animated Movie
Stars : Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana
Score : 7.5 / 10
Mary Daisy Dinkle (Tony Colette) is an eight years old girl. She was very lonely. She lives in Australia with her mother, Vera Lorraine Dinkle. Vera is a bad example of a mother figure and very complicated. She actually did not expect Mary. She is a smoker, love to listen the cricket games from the radio while making a cake. She is an alcoholic and kleptomania. Mary's father, Noel Norman Dinkle, worked in a factory mounting straps for the tea bags. Noel would rather spend his time in the factory by drinking a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream with his ornament bird collection.
Mary is a fan of the cartoon movie, The Noblets, because of its brown character which has a lot of friends. Mary spends her time by watching The Noblets and drink a can of sweetened condensed milk.
Mary's grandfather, Ralph, really loves Mary, but he died caused of pneumonia disease. Mary does not have a brother, a sister or a friend. Her friend is only a Noblets' character ornament in her home. She makes it from second-hand goods, nuts, shells and pom.
Meanwhile, in New York, United States, a 44 years old man was also a fan of The Noblets. He is Max Jerry Horowits (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Max lives alone in his apartment with pets and a ghost. Mr. Ravioli. Max has insomnia and spent his evenings by watching The Noblets. Max has an overweight body and struggling to lose weight by following a sharing class.
At the morning in the post office, Mary is waiting for Vera who will steal a box of envelope. After she saw the list of names in the public phone book, Mary found an idea. Mary chose a name of people in the United States randomly from the phone book. She will write a letter to him. Mary chose Max.
In the first letter, Mary introduced herself. She spoke of all that she likes, about her father, mother and Ethel. She also put Cherry Ripe chocolate bar for Max and sent it.
Max finally accepted the letter. Max is a fragile and sensitive person. He does not like crowds, bright light and really do not like the smell of cigarettes. Max has a flat expression and never smiled. He was never interested about love or having a relationship with a woman. He was very easy to panic when faced with something new, including when he received a letter from Mary. He had to repeat read it four times and overcome the panic attack during 18 hours before replied the letter.
In his letter, Max tells all about him, his childhood, his work and all the trouble. Max also sent his picture to Mary. Max hoped Mary would reply his letter.
A few days later, the letter arrived at Mary's house. Unfortunately, the letter fell to Vera. Vera was very angry and throws it into the trash, unbeknownst Mary. But, Mary found the letter first before being transported by car sanitation departments. Mary immediately replied to Max and asked him to send a reply to a different address.
At that moment, Mary and Max became good friends, even though they never met. The distance is not being a big problem because it can be overcome by a letter. They shared about their news. How Mary and Max keep their friendship? Will they meet someday?
Mary and Max is one of the clay animated films. The definiton of clay animated from Wikipedia is :
" Clay animation or claymation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"-made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay. Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films to videogames, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames persecond. The techniques involved in creating CGI are conversely generally removed from a frame-by-frame process. "
(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_animation)
If I could add to my review about 8 Movies Featuring Most Memorable Friendship (http://www.reviewcinema.com/2013/08/8-film-yang-menampilkan-persahabatan.html), I definitely will add Mary and Max in it. Mary and Max is a movie that has a main idea of friendship. This movie has more value on a very unique friendship between Mary and Max. They are a pen pal who had never met each other. They are separated with a long distances and has a lot of age differences, but they solve it with the same of passion and condition, The Noblets and the loneliness.
Mary and Max also has a full story material. The feeling of happy, sad, troubled, upset and hilarious can be found in this film. Some of the dialogue and scenes are very funny and entertaining, but there are also sad, tragic and touching scenes. One of my favorite is when Mary feels depressed and "fly" after consume valium. She is standing at a table, almost end her life and act like a conductor with the backsound song of Que Sera-Sera.
Although having a common idea, but the story of Mary and Max is not as simple as I thought. This movie tells each character and its problem detailed. The problems that were issued in the film are quite heavy for the size of an animated film, such as insomnia, depression, kleptomania, alcoholic, atheism, social class, homosexual and agorophobia. So, Mary and Max is only suitable watched by adults, not for children.
One message that I can get from the friendship of Mary and Max is All human is imperfect and we have to accept ourself. We can not choose our wart, they are parts of us.
Mary Daisy Dinkle (Tony Colette) is an eight years old girl. She was very lonely. She lives in Australia with her mother, Vera Lorraine Dinkle. Vera is a bad example of a mother figure and very complicated. She actually did not expect Mary. She is a smoker, love to listen the cricket games from the radio while making a cake. She is an alcoholic and kleptomania. Mary's father, Noel Norman Dinkle, worked in a factory mounting straps for the tea bags. Noel would rather spend his time in the factory by drinking a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream with his ornament bird collection.
Mary is a fan of the cartoon movie, The Noblets, because of its brown character which has a lot of friends. Mary spends her time by watching The Noblets and drink a can of sweetened condensed milk.
 |
| Mary |
 |
| The Noblets' characters |
Mary's grandfather, Ralph, really loves Mary, but he died caused of pneumonia disease. Mary does not have a brother, a sister or a friend. Her friend is only a Noblets' character ornament in her home. She makes it from second-hand goods, nuts, shells and pom.
Meanwhile, in New York, United States, a 44 years old man was also a fan of The Noblets. He is Max Jerry Horowits (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Max lives alone in his apartment with pets and a ghost. Mr. Ravioli. Max has insomnia and spent his evenings by watching The Noblets. Max has an overweight body and struggling to lose weight by following a sharing class.
At the morning in the post office, Mary is waiting for Vera who will steal a box of envelope. After she saw the list of names in the public phone book, Mary found an idea. Mary chose a name of people in the United States randomly from the phone book. She will write a letter to him. Mary chose Max.
 |
| Vera steal a box of envelope |
 |
| Mary is writing a letter for Max |
Max finally accepted the letter. Max is a fragile and sensitive person. He does not like crowds, bright light and really do not like the smell of cigarettes. Max has a flat expression and never smiled. He was never interested about love or having a relationship with a woman. He was very easy to panic when faced with something new, including when he received a letter from Mary. He had to repeat read it four times and overcome the panic attack during 18 hours before replied the letter.
In his letter, Max tells all about him, his childhood, his work and all the trouble. Max also sent his picture to Mary. Max hoped Mary would reply his letter.
 |
| Max |
A few days later, the letter arrived at Mary's house. Unfortunately, the letter fell to Vera. Vera was very angry and throws it into the trash, unbeknownst Mary. But, Mary found the letter first before being transported by car sanitation departments. Mary immediately replied to Max and asked him to send a reply to a different address.
At that moment, Mary and Max became good friends, even though they never met. The distance is not being a big problem because it can be overcome by a letter. They shared about their news. How Mary and Max keep their friendship? Will they meet someday?
Mary and Max is one of the clay animated films. The definiton of clay animated from Wikipedia is :
" Clay animation or claymation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"-made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay. Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films to videogames, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames persecond. The techniques involved in creating CGI are conversely generally removed from a frame-by-frame process. "
(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_animation)
If I could add to my review about 8 Movies Featuring Most Memorable Friendship (http://www.reviewcinema.com/2013/08/8-film-yang-menampilkan-persahabatan.html), I definitely will add Mary and Max in it. Mary and Max is a movie that has a main idea of friendship. This movie has more value on a very unique friendship between Mary and Max. They are a pen pal who had never met each other. They are separated with a long distances and has a lot of age differences, but they solve it with the same of passion and condition, The Noblets and the loneliness.
Mary and Max also has a full story material. The feeling of happy, sad, troubled, upset and hilarious can be found in this film. Some of the dialogue and scenes are very funny and entertaining, but there are also sad, tragic and touching scenes. One of my favorite is when Mary feels depressed and "fly" after consume valium. She is standing at a table, almost end her life and act like a conductor with the backsound song of Que Sera-Sera.
 |
| Mary and Que Sera Sera Song |
Although having a common idea, but the story of Mary and Max is not as simple as I thought. This movie tells each character and its problem detailed. The problems that were issued in the film are quite heavy for the size of an animated film, such as insomnia, depression, kleptomania, alcoholic, atheism, social class, homosexual and agorophobia. So, Mary and Max is only suitable watched by adults, not for children.
One message that I can get from the friendship of Mary and Max is All human is imperfect and we have to accept ourself. We can not choose our wart, they are parts of us.
God gave us relatives...
Thank God we can choose our friends
- Ethel Mumford -
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