A swell of strings and piano hit the ears as the eyes take focus on a setting swallowed in a sepia hue and characters that are soft around the edges. Welcome to Mount Waverley, Australia. As soon as the opening scene begins and the guiding voice of the narrator launches into the story, I feel warm like I’m covered in one of those weighted blankets used for anxiety that cost way too much. We immediately meet Mary Daisy Dinkle, and it’s pretty much love at first sight with her and I. The narrator brings her to life through a simple list of somewhat quirky attributes, describing her eyes as “the color of muddy puddles'' and her “birthmark the color of poo.” He notes that she was also wearing a mood ring which was gray, meaning that she was either “pensive, unconsciously ambitious, or hungry.” There’s something about the way the narrator simply lists off the personal and physical traits of Mary and her hometown that makes me wish I, too, was able to describe myself and my life in such straightforward, coherent terms.

I’m 25 years old, and I’ve been living in France for 1.5 years. I’m not really sure why I moved here from Texas–for a change of scenery, to learn a different language, just to do something? But ever since I graduated university a few years ago, it feels as if I’ve been perpetually falling down the rabbit hole of life–a sensation that I realize is not at all unique. Which is maybe why I return to movies like Mary and Max time and time again. I feel like the more I revisit films like this–ones that try to tackle big-life-things–I find more puzzle pieces about how to live that can maybe provide a type of map as I trip my way through the dark tunnel of my 20s.

About halfway through the movie, we get to see Mary also enter this stage in her life. But we’re going to keep the focus on her as a child for now. She’s so cute, almost painfully cute with huge glasses that take up half her face and a little button nose on her pear-shaped head. Her father is neglectful while her mother is a drunk that’s constantly “taste-testing” the sherry. But despite the blanket of darkness that swarms her parents' adult lives, Mary is a child overflowing with curiosity about those infamous big-life-things. She wants to know where babies come from, why people tease other people, what’s the meaning of “love and how [can she] be lovered?”

And that’s when the idea smacks her across the face when visiting the post office with her mom–she decides she’s going to write to someone in America to see if they can help her find some answers, that someone being 44-year-old Max Jerry Horovitz in New York City. Max is ironed out to us by the narrator in a similar fashion to how he described Mary–he “eats chocolate hot dogs,” he “hated Thursdays, the day of his weekly overeaters anonymous meeting,” and he finds “most people very confusing.” He’s constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown and pretty much only talks with his mostly-blind neighbor who feeds him sketchy soup once a week. So when Mary’s letter slid into his mailbox asking questions like, “Are babies in America found at the bottom of dads’ beers like they are in Australia?” and “Have you ever been teased? Can you help me?” he is completely bewildered. Why would this little girl from Australia write to him? But he knows he has to respond. After all, his first life goal was to have a friend “(not invisible).”

What begins after that moment is a 20-year correspondence colored with all the major life events–death, falling in love, illness, getting married. And you as a viewer begin to understand the kind of scale a life can have when it’s described in such a linear manner by the narrator. I’m only at the quarter-life mark, and I’ve just begun to experience those big life events Mary and Max describe in their letters to each other. Watching this film for about the 5th time, I felt myself recognizing this. It’s a feeling of vastness, like my brain is only beginning to understand how much change I’m about to endure in the 3/4s of my life I (hopefully) have left.

And then, before we know it, Mary’s in her 20s, married, and studying mental illness at university. She’s so dedicated to her studies that she decides to publish a book about Asperger’s Syndrome called “Dissecting the Asperger’s Mind” using her letters to Max as source material (Max’s Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis was one of his big-life-things during that 20 year period). Her isolating and unforgiving childhood seems to be moving further into the shadows while her future as a revered writer/researcher and loving wife comes closer into the spotlight. Happiness seems to be meeting her at every corner–that is until Max receives a copy of her book that she sent to him in the mail.

Directly after reading it, he pops 2 valiums and sits in front of his typewriter. Slamming on the keys he writes: “I cannot express myself very clearly at this moment, and so I will list my emotions in the order they feel most intense: hurt, confuzzledness, betrayal, discomfort, distress and wheeziness.” He rips off the letter “M'' from his typewriter and stuffs it in the letter being sent directly to Mary’s doorstep. Enter Mary’s first big-life-fuck-up.

It’s when she receives Max’s letter about her book that she realizes what she’s done. She’s capitalized on an intimate connection in order to propel her professional life forward. She grabbed a knife and dissected his innermost thoughts in paperback form for all of the public to read and then to eventually judge. It was selfish, arrogant, and she knows it. Heartbroken, she destroys all of the copies of her book.

This film, in its simplest form, is about friendship–a friendship that took years to cultivate. I think this is also why I come back to it every few years. It’s not so common that a film really focuses on what it means to be a friend and how hard that can be with the passage of time. Romantic love seems to rank the highest on the hierarchy of “stuff movies should be about.” But platonic love is some of the most profound love I’ve ever felt in my life. So when it’s blunted or even completely severed because of the actions of one person, the pain is all the more visceral–maybe because friendships feel less disposable than romantic relationships? Breaking up is an accepted part of the romantic relationship process. We know when we enter one that there are two possibilities–stay together or don’t stay together. With friendships, the paths aren’t so distinct.

Mary is in her mid-20s when this disaster happens. I’m in my mid-20s as I write this. Her actions make me wonder: would I take advantage of someone else’s story in order to profit from it? Maybe. When you write and you feel there’s an interesting story to tell, it can be easy to disregard the humanity of the person in exchange for their experiences. Fortunately, I haven’t been presented with this situation yet. Maybe this is why I choose to write about movies and art and not my life.

What unfolds in the aftermath is nothing but a complete shitstorm of depression and isolation in Mary’s life. She’s constantly drunk, she pops the pills her dead mom used to take, and her husband leaves her to live on a farm in New Zealand with his new lover. Suffice it to say, she reaches her breaking point. Noose tied around her neck, she decides that she doesn’t want to wallow in the pain any longer. Until *knock, knock* her neighbor arrives at her door with a package from New York City. Snapped out of her inebriated daze, she opens a package filled with Max’s entire collection of Noblets and a letter declaring his forgiveness. In it he writes: “The reason I forgive you is because you are not perfect. You are imperfect and so am I.” Mary looks at the camera. Her mouth quivers with a little smile. Her life can start again.

Max also tells her something his therapist told him: “Everyone’s lives are like a very long sidewalk. Some are well-paved, others like mine, have cracks, banana skins and cigarette butts.” As I sit here living in a completely different country, trying to make new connections while also nourishing and maintaining my old ones, I realize how fast the forward trajectory of life can feel. We can’t stop moving–and forgiving–as we walk, trip, run down each of our own sidewalks. I guess the key is to find at least one really good friend to take along with you so that when you arrive at the end there is a minimal amount of cuts and bruises.

Mary and Max and the Quarter-Life Crisis