Mary and Max, the opening film of the Sundance film festival, wasn't quite what I expected it to be ... but mostly in a good way. The claymation film by Australian director Adam Elliot (who won the Best Short Animated Film for Harvie Krumpet in 2004) is a somber, moody tale about Mary Daisy Dinkle, a lonely, neglected eight-year-old girl in Australia who develops a pen pal relationship with a 40-something, grossly overweight, Asperger's-afflicted Jewish New Yorker named Max.

The claymation is great, and the story, though occasionally convoluted as it goes back and forth between the details of Mary and Max's wretched, solitary lives, is sad and whimsical and moving. I'll have a longer review of Mary and Max later, but for now, suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised and touched by the characters and story; it's a quirky pick to open Sundance, but it's certainly original and charming, albeit in a somewhat depressing way.