From The Age [Melbourne, Australia], Variety, New York Times Carpetbagger Blog:

Melbourne animator Adam Elliot got an enthusiastic response from film industry insiders this week when his feature film, Mary and Max, opened the Sundance festival.

The film focuses on a 20-year pen-pal friendship between an Australian 8-year-old (Mary) and an obese 44-year-old New Yorker with Asperger’s syndrome (Max, above).

Like Elliot’s previous films, Mary and Max is loosely autobiographical and deals with characters who are marginalized by a disability.

“I went on stage at the end and I could see tears in people’s faces,” Elliot said.

From the New York Times:

“I do not feel disabled,” Max says at one point. “I like being an Aspie.” That sentiment is likely to resonate with the disability groups that were, by contrast, so annoyed last year with “Tropic Thunder” for what it said was open ridicule of the intellectually disabled.

From the Variety review:

… writer-director-designer Adam Elliot’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning 2003 short “Harvie Krumpet” has its share of deadpan amusements, but its combo of mordant whimsy and tearjerker moments winds up curdling in an unappetizing fashion. A strong voice cast headed by Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman could buoy the toon’s otherwise uncertain prospects beyond Oz.

See also:
Funny fur hat? Check. Film festival glory? Cheque –The Age [Melbourne, Australia]

(Movie still from maryandmax.com)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 7:43 am and is filed under Asperger's, autism, celebrities, entertainment, movies, NOT2BEMISSED. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.