THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF "MARY & MAX"

“God gave us relatives. Thank God we can choose our friends.” A fridge magnet classic. But never was there a film that portrayed the wisdom in it as the amazing and true story of Mary and Max.
Mary Daisy Dinkle was an 8 year-old in Mount Waverly, Australia in the year 1972. Her mother was an alcoholic, her father a quiet man who spent all his free time on taxidermy. She was shy, awkward and in her own opinion rather ugly. She had no friends and was bullied regularly. Yet she somehow got on with life. And even found some time to ponder deep philosophical questions. One of these questions was where babies came from in America (in Australia Daddies found them at the bottom of their beer glasses at the time). Being a practical girl, Mary decided to write to someone in America and ask.
She randomly chose a name from the New York phone book: Max J. Horowitz from New York City, and boy her choice could not have been more random. Max was a 44 year-old, obese Aspergers syndrome sufferer (undiagnosed at the time). He generally found life rather “confuzzling” and had a rather precarious existence in a flat in the city, by himself. He had no friends either but had always wanted one (one who wasn’t a pet or invisible). He received Mary’s letter, promptly suffered an anxiety attack but decided to answer once he had recovered. This decision was the beginning of a intercontinental “penpalship” that would span the best part of 30 years and would change both their lives, literally and forever.
Such prominent actors and actresses as Toni Colette (adult Mary), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Max) and Eric Bana lend their voices to the characters. But even though all these are admirable, and the awards won at great festivals such as Sundance and Berlin are very, very well deserved, the real appeal of this film lies in its story. It is a perfect reminder of the day-to-day miracles in life. And I promise you’ll love it, even if you aren’t a big fan of stop-motion and plasticine…