Unforgettable and Heartbreaking Bleak Tale of Friendship and Loneliness

Rating: 9/10 (3 September 2010)

In 1976, in Australia, the misfit and outcast eight-year old girl Mary Daisy Dinkle lives in Mount Waverley with her alcoholic shoplifter mother Vera Lorraine Dinkle that is addicted in Sherry and her absent father Noel Norman Dinkle that works in the Earl Grey Factory attaching strings in the teabag and spends his leisure time in his hobby - taxidermy. Mary has absolutely no friends and is teased by her schoolmate Benny Clifford. She has a complex because of her brown birthmark in the forehead and she adores her favorite cartoon The Noblets that she watches with her rooster Ethel and condensed milk. Meanwhile, in New York, the lonely forty-four year-old Max Jerry Horowitz has Asperge Syndrome and trouble to sleep and is obese since he eats chocolate hot-dogs to compensate his anxiety. He frequently goes to the Overeaters Anonymous Meeting. Max does not have any friend, only the invisible Mr. Ravioli, and also loves The Noblets. His life goals are to have a friend, Noblets and chocolate. One day, Mary picks Max address out of an American phone-book and she decides to write to him to ask from where babies come in America. Along their lives, they become pen pals and their unusual friendship oscillates due to the anxiety attacks of the unstable Max.
"Mary and Max" is an unforgettable and heartbreaking bleak tale of friendship and loneliness. The story is bittersweet and witty, with an ironic black humor and provokes the most conflictive emotions in the viewers, funny in a moment, and depressive in the other. The excellent animation follows the dark style of Tim Burton and the screenplay is a profound insight in human behavior. My vote is nine.
Title (Brazil): "Mary and Max – Uma Amizade Diferente" ("Mary and Max – A Different Friendship")