By Alex Martinez

In 2009, Mary and Max, a comedy/drama stop-motion film, was written and directed by Adam Elliot. This story was based on a true story that happened to Adam Elliot. The story is about an 8-year-old girl named Mary who lives in Australia in 1976. She lives with her father and mother. His father doesn’t spend much time with her and her mother is an alcoholic. Even though there are some problems in her life Mary says she lives a decent and happy life. However, she feels lonely since she has no friends to be with. One day she goes with her mother to the postcards and finds a book that tells her different people’s addresses in the United States. At random Mary chooses a person she can be friends with. She chooses someone named Max Horowitz, a 44-year-old man who lives in the United States, New York. He lives alone, is obese, has Asperger syndrome, and takes therapy. He finds the world confusing since he takes everything literally and doesn’t know how to express his emotions or understand the emotions of other people. Mary sends a letter to him with a chocolate. When Max gets the letter from Mary at first he doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t do anything with the letter. Then Max finally decides to write back to Mary.  A friendship starts to bloom in this story when Mary and Max find that they can still connect even though they have different perspectives of this world. This film has dark elements like alcoholism, neglect, bullying, suicide, overdose, etc. And even though with these dark elements the movie finds a way to add some Dark humor to the movie. 

It’s such a good movie that shows two different perspectives on the world. It brings to light struggles with mental health, social life, relationships, childhood, and loving oneself in children and adults. This film is a devastating movie that reveals the reality of life. Even though kids seem to not have as many responsibilities as adults, they also go through things. That many adults may not know or notice. Kids notice many things even though parents think they don’t, since the kids are innocent sometimes they don’t know what it means to what they see. Many things scare them for example, bullying, parents not being there, adults’ actions, emotions against them, etc. Adults have another perspective on this. In life, there are responsibilities and things they have to do. And many other adults are judgemental about things. Some adults judge other people if they view things differently from them. The movie shows that even though you view things in another way that doesn’t mean that you are not “normal” because many people are different and have their things going on. The film also uses clay puppets for the characters giving  more depth to the movie. The expression, the actions, the attention to detail of emotions. And even the backgrounds and objects are enjoyable to watch. Is amusing how smooth the stop motion is made and how the puppets make the film much more comedic with the exaggerated expressions and scenes. 

Many other people think mostly the same about this movie. Christopher John that writes the curb. Writes a review about Mary and Max saying “It’s about people who feel disaffected, lost, scared, stupid, abandoned, or helpless finding connection no matter where they are or who they are. We will all go through great highs and crushing lows, but the connection we have between dear friends is the great truth in the end” I agree that this is a way for people who feel negative emotions in this world is a way for them to see that no matter who they are they can find a connection somewhere and they can feel that it is not only them that feel that way.  The feeling that there’s always someone to make a connection with is beautiful. There’s always going to be those memories left of the connections we make. Highlighting another point from a video review which is called “Mary and Max” by Steve Reviews. In which he talks more about how well this movie was made and how great the scenes were. At one point in the video he says that “The music songs fit perfectly with how the character on the scene is feeling at the time”(Steve Reviews). It doesn’t seem like much in a movie, many movies have music but, when you’re seeing the character on the screen while hearing the music it is as if you can feel whatever they are feeling, the intensity of that feeling, and the effect that feeling has on them. The emotions get through you so well that you can get so focused on the moment that you feel you’re in the scene experiencing the same thing. In one of them he says that one of the movie’s negatives is that “Certain parts of the scenes do drag a bit” (Steve Reviews). And I don’t disagree that certain parts do feel like they are much longer than others. They probably don’t have much significance to the plot than others. But, they are also really special since they give us a background to the characters, they give us more of a funny look at their story than what we see. Which also makes us feel more attached to the characters. 

To sum up, this movie may have very dark themes and use dark comedy. Many things aren’t perfect but, still, it’s worth it to watch. There’s so much in this movie that can make you feel a lot of emotions and it’s very well made. Even with just being a stop-motion film it gets through you the message that it is trying to portray. This film is a gem hidden that many people haven’t found or heard of. I recommend watching this film, it would not waste your time. It might even make you feel a variety of emotions in only one day and make you learn many lessons in only a couple of minutes.