Mary and Max (spoiler)

I don’t know where to start about this film. I found it on netflix late one night and decided to give it a shot. I wasn’t expecting much considering the child like look of the cover photo. I had read reviews that it was a film very much for adults. I don’t know why but I was expecting it to be comical. It was in some ways along with touching, heart wrenching, dramatic, horrifying at times and largely eccentric.

This film is about a young outcast girl with a horrible home life, no friends and very low self esteem who somehow finds a middle aged man on the other side of the world to complete her. Nothing pervy! This friendship is beautiful. Max is an aspie and suffers from anxiety attacks after each of Mary’s letters. Max has never had a friend and has made it one of his three life goals. Mary is alone in the world and is desperately looking for comfort. The letters start out with simple questions and exchanges of chocolate by mail. Each of the characters are innocent in their own way and speak their minds to the point of humor and sometimes pain. They touch each other’s lives in a way the people right next to them cannot. You watch as Mary suffers from the death of her parents, the loss of her husband and the death of her career (this is due to her book based on Max himself and how to cure him which she cancels when Max reveals it has destroyed their friendship). Max is in and out of mental hospitals and jail for basically… being Max. In their lives only one thing is constant, no matter how far apart they are they can always comfort one another. This movie is not the type for fake happy endings and although the events are highly exaggerated the focus is very real. You see their dark thoughts, confused (confuzzled!) thoughts, and the very few happy ones. I am not one of those people who love the unrealistic endings where people “end up together” or “things work out”. The tragedy is the beauty for me. The tragedy is the honesty for me. At times this movie may hurt you to watch but the feeling afterwards can only be described as change.

These characters suffer ups and downs for 20 years and never lay eyes on each other until Max’s death when Mary walks in to meet him and discovers his face frozen, staring up at his ceiling papered with every letter Mary has ever sent. “You are my best friend, you are my only friend” echoes as the movie closes leaving you feeling happy but haunted. This is a film for all those who are imperfect so that they may explore imperfection in a very raw form. 5/5

A Grief Observed by C.S Lewis

Let me start by saying this is a beautiful and vivid book. Fiction books sometimes portray grief realistically but this is a first hand account of C.S Lewis mourning his wife openly and honestly. Notebooks of pain, streamed with tears and questions that no one could ever answer that will captivate anyone who has ever lost a loved one.

I love the simplicity of this book. It is nothing more than a diary of the erratic thoughts of a heart broken man and in that it is masterful. At points Lewis questions God and for him this is proof of just how lost he feels without his love.

When you lose a loved one its the simple things you miss most. I would recommend this read to anyone and everyone. Even if you have never lost someone you will feel his sorrow in your heart and tears upon your face. This book is a glance into the darker places of the soul, the places we hope to never be and it is breathtaking. 5/5

1001. Before you die

1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
6. The Sea – John Banville
7. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
8. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
9. The Master – Colm Tóibín
10. Vanishing Point – David Markson
11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
12. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
14. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
15. The Colour – Rose Tremain
16. Thursbitch – Alan Garner
17. The Light of Day – Graham Swift
18. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon

The boy in the striped pyjamas – john boyne

 I went in really hoping to love this book, to be moved by it even. I had read so many reviews and even saved the film for after the reading so I could compare. It wasn’t so much that the book was bad but even for a “teen” read it is just so simple. One thing could have saved it, changing Bruno’s age to five and his sister’s to 8.  I find it hard to believe that a child of 9 could miss so many things and be so very clueless about the world around him, pronunciation, and his very own father. By nine he would be a Nazi in training wouldn’t he?

The book is an extremely easy read. Huge print, a mere 215 pages and the largest word I came across was “afternoon”.

I would say the simpleness of the book helped to deliver the eerie ending , but it could have been half as simple and still packed the same punch.

In theory this book is an intriguing idea but it wasn’t orchestrated quite as well as it could have been. Regardless of the flaws I give Bruno 3/5 stars for making me think.