Mary and Max: Love yourself first

"If I was on a desert island, then I would have to get used to my own company - just me and the coconuts. I would have to accept myself, my warts and all, and that we don't get choose our warts. They are part of us and we have to live with them. We can, however, choose our friends, and I am glad I have chosen you."- Max Jerry Horovitz, Mary and Max (2009)

I feel like when we persuade someone to watch “ENTER AWESOME MOVIE”, all it boils down to is to a checklist. But maybe the movies we watch have become so trivial that we expect our own criteria before we enter the cinema. Mary and Max isn’t trivial.

Mary and Max is only “trivial” in the sense that the messages it voices is very archetypal however the way it voices through the messages in its own way is astounding and emotionally wrenching.

Mary Daisy Dinkle is an 8-year old Australian suburban girl with low self-esteem, love for sweetened condensed milk, has a rooster named Ethel and equally bizarre parents. Her co-protagonist; Max Jerry Horowitz is a 44-year old New Yorker, with Asperger’s, an imaginary friend called Mr. Ravioli and an invention called chocolate hot-dog (is literally what it sounds like). He has trouble understanding the world and when confronted with something new, he does what he’s best at. Panicking and Anxiety.

The protagonists of the movie; Mary and Max, are imperfect. They face the problems we face in real life. The problems of love, disability, addiction, depression, self-esteem, dissecting the world and so on. The problems Mary and Max face aren’t so dramatic or theatrical as the ones we see in Superhero Blockbusters and Adam Sandler flicks. It doesn’t feel orchestrated and like the characters in Mary and Max, the solution to these problems are imperfect and aren’t a complete antidote to the problem but rather a way to adapt with the means they are left with.

For all the things that make them different to each other, they both share similarities. They both like the TV show “The Noblets” and they lack friends. As much as you think they would be anything contrary to friends, they become exactly that. By becoming pen pals, they form a friendship thousand miles apart. In each other’s company, they find more things in common as they are both trying to figure out life and the world itself with their all their difficulties. Max’s Asperger’s makes him feel the world is chaotic because of his logical and simple mind and Mary’s social anxiety and low self-esteem due to a birth mark on her forehead make her feel like an outcast. However, Max speaks out conveying that he in fact happy with himself and doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with himself and there is a heavy truth in this. What can be wrong with you if you are completely happy with yourself?

It’s hard to conclude on one singular or multiple “meaning in life” from the movie and life in general. Life and the meaning of it is an ever-changing and dynamic phenomenon. That is what I take out from Mary and Max. We all have our wounds and disabilities; our warts and all, which makes us imperfect. We are all imperfect. We do imperfect things. But that’s what makes us. Like Max’s Mr. Ravioli and Mary’s chicken Ethel, we all have our mechanisms to cope and remind us of our meanings of life, our reasons to keep calm and carry on. That is the ultimate moral of this story; Love yourself first, then you will love the world around you. The message so trivial yet quite invigorating.

This isn’t meant to be a movie review but a suggestion for a movie to watch if you were looking for one to watch. However, it was difficult to keep to yourself after watching this movie. It left a pretty big void so I had to voice my thoughts somewhere. Let’s hope these thoughts were compelling and persuasive enough for you to check the movie out.

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