In 1976, 8-year-old Mary Daisy Dingle (voiced by Bethany Whitmore) was a little girl in Melbourne, Australia, who liked the cartoon "Noblit", sweetened condensed milk and chocolate. Mary's mother was an alcoholic, and her father, who worked in a tea packaging factory, only liked to make bird specimens. Lonely Mary had no friends. One day, she wrote a letter to Max Jerry Horowitz (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman) in New York City, USA, asking where American children came from, and attached a cherry chocolate bar. 44-year-old Max suffered from autism and obesity, and happened to like watching the "Noblit" cartoon and eating chocolate. The two men's pen pal relationship lasted from 1976 to 1994, during which time they each experienced many ups and downs in life, until the adult Mary (voiced by Toni Collette) finally came to New York to visit Max... The film won the Best Animated Feature Film Award at the 2009 Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, the Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the highest award at the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival.