There's just no other way to describe "Mary and Max," the eccentric clay-animation tour de force by Australian director Adam Elliot, than as "black humor." What else can you a call a film where the best jokes involve a plummeting air conditioner and the head of a street mime, or a goldfish and an electric toaster?
And yet Elliot has great compassion for his misfit characters, an unlikely pair of pen-friends who find solace in each other's words. There's a mix of innocence and bleakness in "Mary and Max" that recalls the style of U.S. indie iconoclast Todd Solondz ("Happiness," "Welcome to the Dollhouse"), especially in the way it can mercilessly skewer its characters while still feeling affection for them.
Mary Daisy Dinkle (voiced by Toni Collette) is a shy 8-year-old in Australia with the kind of looks that scream "bully me!" Between her alcoholic, shoplifting mom and her reclusive dad, whose hobby is taxidermy, Mary feels rather abandoned; her wish for a friend, just someone to talk to, is realized when she randomly sends a letter (and a chocolate bar) to a name she pulls out of a Manhattan phone book.