Australian animator Adam Elliot, whose “Harvie Krumpet” won the Oscar for animated short in 2003, returns with his first feature-length film, the remarkable and poignant “Mary and Max,” a stop-motion work in what he calls “clayography,” a painstaking process of much whimsical detail.
Mary (voiced by Bethany Whitmore and, later, Toni Collette) is a homely 8-year-old living in a drab Australian suburb who, picking a name out of a Manhattan phone book, writes to one Max Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an even homelier 300-pound ex-mental patient living in a dingy but spacious old apartment with a variety of pets and a collection of figurines he calls Noblitts.
It is the beginning of a 20-year correspondence of two lonely people. As time goes by, Max, buoyed by his pen pal, develops his inner resources, even calmly accepting his Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis. But when Mary learns of the diagnosis, she is transformed, finding purpose in becoming an Asperger’s expert, determined to find a cure for her friend’s disease. But does Max want to be cured?
Elliot, who really has carried on a 20-year correspondence with a New York pen pal who has Asperger’s, is dedicated to enlightening people about the affliction, and in “Mary and Max” creates a film noir world of blacks, whites and grays for Max and a sepia-toned suburbia for Mary.
What Elliot concludes is that all worlds are imperfect and so are the people who inhabit them.
“Mary and Max’s” jauntiness fades into a sadness that culminates on a note of self-acceptance — and a great gratitude for the sustaining, redemptive power of friendship.
Not rated. Claymation. 1 hour, 32 minutes. Written and directed by Adam Elliot; starring Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bethany Whitmore, Barry Humphries and Eric Bana. Opens today at Starz FilmCenter.
