An Unexpected Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (23 December 2018)

Mary and Max was everything I wanted and more. The story is about a girl named Mary who doesn't have any friends so she sends a letter to a random person in the phone book. The letter is sent to a man in New York. The whole movie is about their relashinship as each other's only friends. This film absolutely drained me emotionally. Their relashinship made me laugh and cry a lot. It really gives off the feel of a real relashinship with all of the ups and downs. In other movies friendships usually don't seem real and are predictable. In this film, their relashinship is anything but predictable. That leads to the rollercoaster of emotions. The best part of this movie though is the writing. Mary's writing perfectly captures the thoughts of a child. Max's writing perfectly captures the thoughts of a man just trying to make a friend. They never tried to go too houmerous with the writing as well. The characters say lines that are funny in context, but because of the excellent voice acting from Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Bethany Witmore, as well as Toni Collete the lines become more humerous because they don't talk like they're making the joke. It just sounds like they're talking like a regular person which makes the joke seem more real and not seem like "okay, this is where they put the joke." All the writing seems natural. I've heard complaints about the pacing of this film but I found it great. Nothing was ever too slow or fast. The last thing I want to touch on is the stop motion. It is absolutely stellar. This is some of the best stop motion animation I've ever seen, especially with the very smal budget this film had. There is so much detail in the environments, it's crazy. With all of this in mind, please do yourself a favor and see this film.