Adam Elliot has always seemed to feel out of place. The Oscar-winning Australian animator can often relate to the characters he creates based on his own real-life experiences. In his feature-length film debut, Mary and Max, Elliot provides us with the simple tale of a pen-friendship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Aspergers Syndrome residing in the chaos of New York. The concept for the idea of the film is based on a true story in which Elliot's own 20-year pen friendship with a Jewish-atheist-Aspergers-New Yorker inspired the film. Will he ever meet his long-lost friend who he communicates via mail? Elliot hopes to finally meet his pen-pal for the first time on an upcoming publicity tour to the Big Apple. The film utilizes a total of 212 puppets layed across 133 different sets in which he uses a form of stop-motion animation, or "claymation." Although Mary and Max may seem like a children's film it takes us on a journey that explores friendship, autism, alcoholism, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual difference, trust, copulating dogs, religious difference, agoraphobia and much much more. The often dark yet comical film hits theatres nation-wide tomorrow (Thursday) debuting over the typically competitive Easter weekend. Here is a short trailer of what the film has to offer:
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4 years ago
This film seem very intriguing and a unique concept. There hasn't been much claymation flicks our recently as well. I'm curious as to how well this will do at the box office in US and nationally...
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