Barry Humphries

(Google Play Streaming, December 2016) For a movie that deals with crippling depression, loneliness, autism and lives going awry, Mary and Max has a surprising amount of charm and humour. Executed through Claymation by writer/director/genius Adam Elliot, this is a film that boldly runs into absurdity, laughter and tears. Narration by Barry Humphries helps a lot in smoothing the film’s affecting mixture of moods into a unified whole, but it’s Elliot’s script that’s the glue holding everything together. The digressions themselves become fascinating, improbably helping the film’s somewhat simple plot stretch satisfyingly over 90 minutes. It’s a fascinating character study of two lonely people (capably voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Colette) in a tone quite unlike anything else. It’s well worth a look, and that’s why this review is so short—Mary and Max is a film that speaks for itself.