Mary and Max

Dublin Core

Title

Mary and Max

Description

Note: This film contains suicidal imagery.

Lonely, Mary contacts a stranger in New York hoping to make a pen pal. Choosing one at random, she selects Max, a man with autism who is also quite lonely and has difficulty making friends and understanding relationships.

When Mary becomes older, she marries her crush, Damien. Throughout the film, Damien is coded as queer, and he later leaves her for his pen pal in New Zealand. While Damien is confirmed to be attracted to men, whether or not he was ever attracted to Mary during their relationship, is a bit more ambiguous. While I found trouble confirming interviews about Damien’s sexuality from the film's initial release, Elliot confirmed Damien was gay in 2024 in an interview for Gay City News “Q&A: Director Adam Elliott on the making of ‘Memoir of a Snail.’”

Source

Director: Adam Elliot
Year: 2009
Country: Australia

Gender and Sexuality: Asexual, gay
Animation Style: Digital, stop motion
Genre: Comedy, drama
Type: Explicit, feature

Can currently be watched on Tubi or YouTube: https://tubitv.com/movies/100000941/mary-and-max

 

Files

Citation

“Mary and Max,” Queer Animation, accessed June 14, 2025, https://queeranimation.omeka.net/items/show/71.