-An 8-year-old Australian girl and a 44-year-old American, Aspergers-inflicted man correspond over 22 years.-This really is a lovely film. That's the only way to describe it. The claymation is astonishingly detailed, right down to the colors--Mary's Australia is a yellow tint inplying pre-Oz Dorothy's Kansas, while Max's New York is almost Sin City -ish, gorgeous black-and-white with touches of red.
-Meanwhile, the plot--in which the two people, both lonely and friendless but for each other, send letters that go from funny to heartbreaking, as their lives carry on in rather depressing ways--is engaging and genuinely sweet, without going into fucking twee.
-Philip Seymour Hoffman makes me wish they gave Oscars for voice actors. I mean, Toni Collette is good too, but Hoffman is just brilliant, with his old-timer stereotypical voice that one would expect to fit a grouchy old man, but (ugh, descriptions) perfectly captures the character, this anxious, emotionally emotionless, simple guy, y'know?
-Watch it, my sirs.