A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York.
Writing
Letters so honest they physically hurt.
Practical Effects
Stop-motion ugliness as emotional superpower.
Acting
Hoffman's voice: trembling, precise, unforgettable.
Director
Adam Elliot
Toni Collette
Mary (voice)
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Max (voice)
Barry Humphries
Narrator (voice)
Eric Bana
Damien (voice)
Bethany Whitmore
Young Mary (voice)
Renée Geyer
Vera Lorraine Dinkle (voice)
Ian 'Molly' Meldrum
Homeless Man (voice)
John Flaus
Harvey Krumpet / Ken / Len Hislop (voice)
Christopher Massey
911 Operator / Ambulance Voice / Derisive Observer (voice)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Adam Elliot based Max partly on his own pen pal of 20 years, a Jewish man with Asperger's in New York.
The film uses brown monochrome for Max's world and grey-beige for Mary's—a visual language of mutual drabness seeking color in each other.
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