Mary and Max (2009)

Australian stop-motion animator Adam Elliot has a very distinct style and tone to his work, as well as an interesting collection of obsessions, including Australia, family dysfunction, animals, old age, helplessness, various psychiatric conditions and the employment of talented narrators. Inspired by a true story more then it is based on one, Mary and Max tells the story of a lonely eight year old Australian girl named Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced by Bethany Whitmore as a child and later by Toni Collette as an adult) who in 1976 picks a name at random out of a New York telephone book, writes a letter, and for the next 20 years carries on a correspondence and life changing relationship with Max Jerry Horowitz (brilliantly voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman), an overweight, Jewish atheist with Asperger syndrome. A mix of dry comedy, eccentricity and sentiment Mary and Max is a surprisingly affecting film about an unusual and unexpected relationship and the need to seek out kindred souls, even if they are half a world away. A close cinematic sibling to Elliot's Oscar winning 2003 short Harvie Krumpet, about a Polish immigrant with Tourette syndrome. ***1/2