Mary and Max

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Original title: Mary and Max
Year: 2009
Running time: 88 min.
Country: Australia
Director: Adam Elliot
Screenwriter: Adam Elliot
Music: Dale Cornelius
Cinematography: Animation, Gerald Thompson
Cast: Animation
Producer: Melodrama Pictures
Genre: Animation. Drama. Comedy | Comedy-Drama. Friendship. Stop Motion. Claymation. Adult Animation. Disability. Autism
Synopsis / Plot: One day, 8 year-old Mary chooses a name from the New York phone directory at random, that of Max, and writes him a letter. Max is a lonely 44 year-old man who has no friends. A correspondence grows between the two of them over the years, with Max coming to offer Mary advice about how to deal with life and Mary being Max’s one and only friend.

Awards: 2010: BAFICI: Official Selection

2009: Festival Annecy: Best Movie (tied with "Coraline")

2009: Berlin Film Festival: Oso of Cristal (Special Mention - Generation 14plus)

Critics' reviews

In a perverse and often immature way, it forthrightly deals with mature issues of love, friendship, forgiveness and mental health. It requires a mature audience, but an audience nonetheless. (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of four)"

Peter Howell: Toronto Star
"Remarkable and poignant"

Kevin Thomas: Los Angeles Times
"Mary and Max" is clearly a labor of love, but one destined perhaps to be loved by a very select few.

Justin Chang: Variety
"Tremendously inventive, clever and wise, Mary and Max is a story for grown ups about life's dissonances (...) Technically, the claymation is wonderful, lively and detailed."

Andrew L. Urban: Urbancinefile
"'Mary and Max' is a moving celebration of oddness and friendship. (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of five)"

Cath Clarke: Time Out
"A very odd, very unlikely animated film from Australia that manages to be sickly-cute, alarmingly grotesque, and right-on at the same time (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"

Andrew Pulver: The Guardian
"Elliot is a talent eccentric enough to make Nick Park look like an office drone, and the serious sadness underpinning his vision only makes the humour work better (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"

Tim Robey: Telegraph
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Ranking Lists Position

4 My Favorite Australian/New Zealand Movies (55)
9 Little Gems: Little Known Movies I've Discovered (124)
20 My Top 10 Movies from 2009 (271)
28 Movies I Want to Watch (old releases) (3622)
38 My Favorite Animated Movies (365)
87 My Top 20 Movies from the 2000s (74)
90 Most Moving Movies (46)

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