An astonishing work of art

Rating: 10/10 (5 July 2009)

Just as it seemed that with the fall (or at least the decline) of the two most distinguished entertainment industries in the history of animated films – The Walt Disney Company and DreamWorks Animation – The Tale of Despereaux would have to last us for generations, here emerged a most remarkable offering of quality and taste that wipes out the memory of the mouse's tale and smashes Bolt to smithereens. Oscar-winning stop-clay animation magician Adam Elliot has dived deep into his collection of childhood memories and plucked out the pieces of a most fascinating story. It is these mementos and recollections that form the basis of his script. It is a story of many things, one being the extraordinary friendship between the two pen pals of the film's title that arises purely by coincidence.
Sweet little eight-year-old Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced splendidly by the carefully chosen Bethany Whitmore) lives in suburban Melbourne in the seventies with her inattentive and greatly flawed parents. Her mother (voiced superbly by Renée Geyer in one of the earlier scenes) is the most repulsive creature ever to walk the Earth. Apart from being a hideous old hag, a shifty shoplifter, a drunk, and a terrible smoke addict, she is a horrible mother who has hardly any love, care, or time for her daughter. Her father works at a teabag factory. For a hobby he stuffs dead animals he finds lying on the road, and when he is not working he sits in his shed with his revolting collection of preserved carcasses. He has even less time for Mary than her mother does, and the little screen time he is given is symbolic of his obscure involvement in Mary's upbringing. Poor Mary is also the subject of much torment at school due to the unsightly "poo-coloured" birthmark on her forehead. Her self-made action figures are all the lonely girl has in this world. The pitiful Max (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is here absolutely outstanding) is in his early forties, and is equally as lonely as Mary. For a person with Asperger's Syndrome, New York is the worst place to live. As a result of his condition he is hypersensitive, clumsy, antisocial and absolutely bizarre to everyone else. Completely isolated socially from all humanity, he spends most of his time in his flat watching television and devouring one of his "chocolate hotdogs" after another. The lengthy, detailed and unbelievably forthright letters that Mary receives from this genuinely good-hearted obese man are incredibly insightful and one of the finest aspects of the film. The touching tale is topped off with delightful narration by Barry Humphries and a fun sense of quirkiness as well as a dash of intelligent humour to avoid things from getting too depressing. The animation is unique and complementary to the story, with a purposeful lack of colour and lumpy appearance.
Though the final scenes are a slight letdown in comparison to the charming first hour. The traumatic events that unfold after the final letter is sent to an elderly yet predominantly unchanged Max by a now successful, well-to-do and adult Mary (now voiced by Toni Collette) that apparently aggravates him, seem far too concocted to have been part of the true story upon which the film was based and vaguely even detract from the realism brought about by the earlier scenes. The many deaths however are for the most part believable and fittingly incorporated, but the inclusion of one or two of them seems questionable.