Drawn animation has made a convincing bid for serious grown-up status lately, with such internationally feted works as Persepolis (2007) and Waltz with Bashir (2008); but stop-motion still tends to be viewed as the exclusive territory of the cute, the cuddly and the child-orientated. This first feature from the Oscar®-winning director of the short film Harvie Krumpet (EIFF 2003) is plenty cute in its own way, but its concerns extend far beyond cheese and crackers. Mary is an Australian schoolgirl who, like many an emotionally malnourished child, has rationalised a fairly horrific home and school existence into an indistinct, just-tolerable backdrop for her fantasy life. Unpopular at school and neglected at home by a bitter, perpetually half-cut mother who conceals sherry in a teacup, Mary strikes out into the unknown for friendship, writing a friendly letter full of queries about life to the first name she picks out of the Manhattan telephone directory. The recipient is one Max Horowitz, a solitary, overweight bachelor. As Max has Asperger's syndrome, he takes Mary's letter very literally, and responds as requested with answers to her questions. However, as the penfriendship develops, Max also finds Mary's curiosity and directness overwhelming, and her letters come to precipitate regular panic attacks. Mary, meanwhile, doesn't always read Max's subtle needs correctly as she blunders into the self-interested fug of adolescence and early adulthood… As a portrait of an unusual friendship, Mary and Max is both touching and authentic – no doubt because Elliot based the story's set-up upon a real epistolary relationship that he has sustained over twenty years or so. As an allegory for the unpredictable demands imposed by any kind of intimacy, it has considerable emotional power: the course of friendship certainly doesn't run smooth for Mary and Max, and the detail of their squabbles, misunderstandings and estrangements rings painfully true. And as an empathetic study of the trials of an 'aspie' as compared and contrasted with those of a 'normal' person, it's irreverent, empathetic and progressive. Elliot's dazzling claymation work – alive with engaging detail – is backed by excellent voice work, from no less than Philip Seymour Hoffman as Max, Toni Collette as Mary and Barry Humphries on narration duties.

Screening with:

Horn Dog

• Bill Plympton /
• USA /
• 2009 /
• 6 mins

Director: Bill Plympton
Producer: Biljana Labovic
Scriptwriter: Bill Plympton
Editor: Biljana Labovic
Music: Corey A. Jackson