Mary and Max

Animation mastermind Adam Elliot's adult absurdist film is a droll stylistic comic vision that's anything but conventional. Audiences familiar with "Wallace & Gromit" will adapt easily to Elliot's painstakingly detailed clay world orchestrated with thought-bubbles, catchy musical themes, and spot-on vocal performances. The story is about a couple of unlikely pen pals--Max (Philip Seymour Hoffman) suffers from Asperger syndrome and lives in Manhattan circa '76, and Mary (Toni Collette) is a lonely 8-year-old girl living in Australia. The movie comes at you like a kaleidoscope collage of neuroses, fears, and misunderstandings. Deaths and near-suicides are narrative colors that Elliot paints with a scatological brush--there are so many poo references that you'd think "Max and Mary" was a Korean film. A narrator (Barry Humphries) adds another gear of our mutual protagonists' inner thoughts as they age across a decade that finds Mary getting married, and Max grappling with his many obsessions. "Mary and Max" is a highly inventive claymation tragicomedy told from a very personal perspective. It's not intended to be everyone's cup of bittersweet tea.

Not Rated. 92 mins.  (B) (Three Stars)