Rent Mary and Max (2009)

mary and max - Mary and Max review by CP Customer

this film was amazing.it was both hilarious and had a sad and emotional story. i love the way that there was no dialogue and the only speech was the narrator and the voices of Mary and max reading out the letters to each other. i also love the fact that they were so close though they had never met and this film had such a beautiful ending though i wanted it to carry on . i might have cried at the end if i was that sort of person.i defiantly recommend this film for you to see.

Bittersweet & Heartbreaking Tragicomedy Filmed in Greyscale with Wonky Plasticine - Mary and Max review by PV

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Then watched some of the extras and found the MAKING OF fascinating but also the 2003 Oscar-winning short film HARVIE KRUMPET and realised that this MARY AND MAX is a remake of that, in so many ways. I recommend watching it (give the tedious allegedly acted-out live-action 'comedy' scenes at the studio a miss).

In fact, the films are SO similar re the characters and story that I am getting them confused and mixed up when remembering them! MARY AND MAX adds a New York US connection, I suppose, with HARVIE KRUMPET. Both have Jewish older lone male oddballs at their heart. To tackle mental illness and other social issues in a film without being preachy or getting all moral and judgemental is an achievement in itself.

Both films are in the tragicomedy genre with themes of a bittersweet nature and psychological development of the often loner/outcast characters; both are shot in greyscale stop-motion with Plasticine (invented 1897!) which Britain's Aardman studios in Bristol have made their own in recent years. I salute the patience of all these people - animation takes years and weeks just to film a second or two of footage sometimes. Not for me... only to watch, anyway!

The film relies a lot on the voiceover, this time by the late great Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage) and some top-class US actors playing the characters including the late Philip Seymour Hoffman who ironically died of a drug overdose in a New York apartment age just 46... The first HARVIE KRUMPET Oscar-winning short is narrated by Geoffrey Rush, so somehow this film maker has a knack of attracting top talent to his animations!

I recommend all who like this to watch 2016 ETHEL AND ERNEST - a more traditional drawn animation feature film by The Snowman;s Raymond Bridge which also deals with mental illness - that is as heartbreaking as this ultimately is.

Everything But The Kitchen sink - Mary and Max review by D C

Its hard to gush about animation cartoons what ever you call the genre and its previously been underated but wallace and gromit are terrific adventures but this is a a cut above a fantastic storey of ordinaryness and like the other review it pulled the viewer in every way in the arty farty world they call it pathos.

A must see for any ordinary person or peeps a true classic of our time and derserves more awards.

Im just off to test the adults tea as it needs constant testing :o) where did I leave those fish fingers!