Mary and Max

SPOILER ALERT: I can't help but talk about this movie. And I can't talk about the movie without revealing some stuff (that you could find on Wikipedia if you wanted).

There has not been a movie in quite a while that struck a nerve quite like Mary and Max. No, it has no super heroes, and there are not any explosions. Many of you may think the movie is boring, with too much introspection and dialogue. I tell you, give it a chance. The topics covered in the movie include self doubt, depression, chocolate, autism, dealing with fucked up parents and childhood, and collectibles. What could be more relevant to fatties than that?

 Mary is a lonely child who decides to write a stranger out of the blue. It turns out to be an autistic man named Max. Mary and Max become friends over the course of a lifetime. There is an interesting dynamic between the two: Mary keeps asking Max questions that freak him out, one time to the point of institutionalization. Max depresses Mary because she tries to help him when he does not want help. To me, the prevailing theme of the whole movie is when and what you can change. Mary is a bit of a control freak. She wears a mood ring and tries to monitor her moods this way. Mary has a mark on her forehead that Mary herself says "looks like poop." over time, she earns enough money to have it removed. Mary later realizes (guiltily)she would have rather spent the money travelling from her home in Australia to see Max who lives in New York. 

 Mary means well, but gets upset when she cannot change who people are. This happens a few times in the movie: her agoraphobic neighbor, her effeminate husband and Max. Finally, Mary devotes many years of study to Asperberger's in hopes of "curing" Max, and writes a book. When Max writes back he feels betrayed by her because he does not feel he needs to be cured of anything, Mary pulps the book that was about to make her famous and comes to the brink of suicide. Her agoraphobic neighbor comes to the rescue by coming to her door at the last moment with an apology from Max.   There are some changes that happen incrementally, and become rather dramatic at the end of the film.

 It sounds depressing as hell, and some of it is. The movie spans thirty years, so there are a lot of deaths. However, most of the deaths have a sad sweetness to them. The pattern I found in the movie was that most of the deaths happened when a character was doing something he/she really enjoyed. A message, and a way to soften the blow. Also, the dialogue is pretty damn funny at times. I love Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who are the primary voice actors in the film.

 One warning: if you are vehemently opposed to gratuitous deaths involving mimes and a falling air conditioner, you may want to avoid the movie. Also, there are a lot of dying goldfish in the movie. Remember PETA members, they are animated.