I'd like to give a summary of the plot in my own words, but Wikipedia does a pretty good job of it so I'm just going to copy and paste what it says, and add in some details in square parentheses:
"It is 1976, and 8-year-old Mary Daisy Dinkle is a lonely little girl living in Mount Waverley, Australia. Her relatively poor family cannot afford to buy her toys or nice clothing, and she is teased by children at her school due to an unfortunate birthmark on her forehead. Her father is distant and her alcoholic, kleptomaniac mother provides no support. The closest thing Mary has to a friend is the man for whom she collects mail, Len Hislop, a Greek-Australian World War II veteran who lost his legs in combat and has developed agoraphobia.
One day, by pure chance, she decides to write a letter to a man living in New York City: Max Jerry Horowitz [she accompanies her mother to the post office and while her mother is stealing envelopes, she rips out Max's address from a New York City phone book]. Max turns out to be a morbidly obese 44-year-old whose various mental problems (including anxiety attacks and overeating) have left him unable to form close bonds with other people. Max decides to write back to Mary, and the two become friends. Over time, Mary's increasingly sensitive questions about the adult world give Max progressively worse anxiety attacks, and he is ultimately institutionalised. During his time there, Max is diagnosed with depression and Asperger's syndrome. Now aware of why he has difficulty relating to other people, Max finds a new lease on life and resumes his correspondence with Mary.
The two remain friends for the next two decades, keeping one another updated on various events in their lives [including Mary's parents' separate and untimely deaths]. Mary, inspired by her friendship with Max, becomes a psychologist and marries her childhood crush, an effeminate young man named Damien Popodopoulos, who enjoys sewing but fears Mary's sexual advances. Max wins the New York lottery, using his winnings to buy a (literal) lifetime's supply of chocolate and then giving the rest away to his elderly neighbour, who wastes most of it before dying and leaving the remainder to a cat shelter only to have the owner of the shelter take it all for himself.
After earning her degree, Mary writes a psychological book detailing her communication with Max, in an attempt to dissect Asperger's syndrome. Max is infuriated, having told Mary that he has come to terms with his illness and sees it as an integral part of his personality, not something that needs to be diagnosed and cured. Max ends his communication with Mary, sending her the "M" key from his typewriter. When Mary receives the key in the mail, she is heartbroken and has the entire run of the book pulped, ruining her career. Jobless and friendless, Mary discovers that while she has been focused on her book, her husband has left her for his own penpal, a gay sheep farmer from New Zealand. Mary sinks into chronic depression and alcoholism; although Max decides to forgive Mary and sends her a present in an attempt to reconcile, Mary becomes a shut-in, leaving the box on her porch for several days. Ultimately, Mary decides to hang herself, unaware that she is pregnant.
Just as Mary is about to kill herself, Len knocks on her door, having conquered his agoraphobia to alert her of the package on her porch. Opening it, Mary finds Max's reconciliation gift, along with an accompanying letter detailing the reasons why he forgives her, how much their friendship means to him, and his hope that one day their lives will intersect and they will meet in person. It is enough to jar Mary from her depression, and she decides to start her life over again.
One year later, Mary travels to America with her infant son to finally visit Max. Entering his apartment, Mary discovers the now elderly Max, sitting on his couch, gazing upward, having passed away peacefully earlier that morning. SEeing this, Mary returns the removed "M" key to Max's typewriter and sits down next to him with her son. Looking around the apartment, Mary discovers that Max has organised the entire ceiling into a detailed scrapbook of his friendship with Mary, composed of all of her letters from over the years, which is what he was looking at when he died. Seeing how much Max valued their friendship and how happy it made him, Mary is moved to tears of joy as the film closes."
This movie was awesome. I didn't expect it to deal with such serious themes (broken home, loneliness, death, failed marriage, substance abuse, depression, suicide), but once I realised it was a movie for grown-ups, I quickly appreciated its quirky charm and unique story. The friendship between Mary and Max, two completely different individuals who have nothing in common apart from the fact that they are both social pariahs, is unorthodox yet beautiful. They find comfort and support in each other, and grow to genuinely love and care for one another. One particular scene of the film stood out for me. When Mary is still a young girl, Max tells her in one of his letters that he cannot cry. In response, Mary peels an onion, collects her tears in a jar and sends it to Max. Also, the whole movie is colourless: Mary's world is sepia, and Max's world is grey. While this doesn't change, it's clear that the characters' friendship brings colour to both their lives.
While the story was theatrical, it was moving and unusual, which I really liked. It drove home the truism that humans are made for relationships; Mary and Max become more human through their friendship. And the film conveyed the message of hope in its own wonderfully weird way. Things might look bleak and there may seem to be no way out of the deep pit you somehow got into, but you'll survive, with a little help from your loved ones.
If you're keen to watch something quaint and special, check out "Mary and Max".
Have a great day.
G.
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