Adam Elliot makes awkward clay people worth spending time with, finding humour in their peculiarities without asking us to look down on them. We rate his patience highly, though he sometimes gives their misfortunes too much emphasis.
Fi1m perspective
In Mary and Max (2009), an awkward clay shape can tell us how someone feels before a voice explains it. Elliot's work as production designer makes the figures expressive without tidying away their oddness. Gerald Thompson photographs them so that they seem to occupy real space and carry weight. The visual jokes can be grotesque, but Elliot does not let us forget that these people are lonely.
That interest was there in the narrated biography of his first short, Uncle (1996), and runs through his stop-motion work. Harvie Krumpet (2003) preceded the move to features with Mary and Max. He returned to the short form with Ernie Biscuit (2015), before making his second feature, Memoir of a Snail (2024). The scale has changed more than the method: he still uses handcrafted figures and sets to tell stories drawn from the people around him.
Mary and Max earns our warm recommendation chiefly through the letters between its two lonely correspondents. The Australian girl and the New Yorker cannot immediately put each other right, so Elliot lets an ill-explained thought cause trouble without rushing in to reassure us. We were moved by the patience he gives these exchanges, and by his willingness to let both people remain difficult company. Barry Humphries's narration helps: peculiar behaviour sounds funnier when described with such composure.
His weakness is knowing when we have understood enough. Bill Murphy's editing keeps the individual comic episodes in order, but cannot stop the succession of troubles in Mary and Max from becoming repetitive. Dale Cornelius's music gives the exchanges warmth; the voices need little help, though, and Elliot sometimes presses the sadness harder than they need. Another eccentric detail can arrive after we have already understood the character, making the film feel longer than it should. Begin with Mary and Max, and do not mistake the clay for a promise of an easy evening.
Biography
Adam Elliot is an Australian stop-motion animator, writer and director. Born on 2 January 1972 in Berwick, Victoria, he studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, where he made his first short films.
He is known for a series of shorts including the Oscar-winning Harvie Krumpet (2003) and the features Mary and Max (2009), on which he also worked as writer and production designer, and Memoir of a Snail (2024). Elliot describes his works as “clayographies”, clay-animated biographies drawn loosely from family and friends. His films have received an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and two Annecy Cristals for best feature.
