Member review

“Always merry killed by sherry” (That joke killed me too)

I think I am now just about fit to write about Mary and Max, a truly remarkable accomplishment that literally takes you from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. I normally try to refrain from crying when immersing myself in an imaginary, constructed world but I couldn’t help wiping a tear from my eye as the film took me on a never ending emotional rollercoaster. The script and screenplay was truly fantastic. It was perfect, so funny but yet so tragic! Every joke was a winner, so clever but yet perfectly appropriate, leaving me in fits of laughter. What I love about animated comedies, is the attention to detail with the jokes that I love in Wallace and Gromit and Toy Story, widely regarded as Pixar’s greatest creation. Talking of Pixar, for me the film sends you on a similar journey as I had with the opening prologue to ‘Up’, explaining Carl and Ellie’s love story. You can draw more comparisons between Up and Mary and Max in terms of striking up very unlikely relationships: Carl and Russell for one and Mary Dingle and Max Horowitz for another. The clay animation wasn’t quite in Aardman’s league but this can be easily overlooked because of the nature of the narrative. Mary (Toni Collette), largely neglected by her parents is desperately in search of someone to talk to. She randomly decides to blindly contact someone in New York, pulls out Max’s address from the telephone directory and starts to write to him. They start a pen pal relationship from Australia to America which continues for many years. Max, voiced excellently by the late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman was the character I really took to heart, a lonely, obese middle aged man who loves chocolate and has Asperger’s Syndrome, but he prefers to be referred to as an Aspie! His condition is much more serious than mine, which is the nature of a spectrum disorder but I could connect with his social failings, and identify his troubles expressing emotions and understanding what people think. Through Max you can see a person who longed to be someone who was popular and different to himself but the film teaches us to accept people as how they are which through my experiences and others with the condition, people have gradually come round to do. I like how he isn’t portrayed as a freak but as a loveable character and that his unique Asperger’s qualities are turned into some hilarious gags. I love the film’s score as well. It includes a lot of great pieces of music like Que Sera Sera that is synonymous with the football terraces and Dance of the Knights by Prokofiev that sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it with its booming brass and dramatic string section. The less classically trained ear will unfortunately recognise it as the Apprentice theme music. I’m glad in hindsight I found this hidden gem of a dark comedy but boy did the ending break me. I’m warning you, be prepared!