A charming delight as this Oscar-nominated live-action/stop-motion animation hybrid centers on the exploits and feelings of a talking mollusc shell who lives with his granny, shot as a self-aware ‘documentary’.
Review #2,717
Dir. Dean Fleischer-Camp
2021 | USA | Comedy, Drama, Animation | 89 min | 1.55:1 | English
PG (passed clean) for some suggestive material and thematic elements
Cast: –
Plot: A cash-strapped documentary maker decides to make his newest documentary about a mollusk shell he finds living in his Airbnb with his friends.
Awards: Nom. for Best Animated Feature (Oscars)
International Sales: Endeavor Content
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Light – Finding Family; Documentary Filmmaking; Existence & Discovery
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Mainstream
Viewed: The Projector Cineleisure
Spoilers: No
Dean Fleisher-Camp has been toying with ‘Marcel the Shell’ for over a decade with several YouTube videos totalling nearly 50 million views. In the updated captions of these videos, he proclaims, “Marcel is now a major motion picture!”, and an Oscar-nominated one, if I may add.
Although it lost out to Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is one of the more charming animated features in recent years.
Having said that, it may be more accurate to describe the film as a live-action/stop-motion animation hybrid, shot as a self-aware ‘documentary’.
While it does seem like a work of many forms and layers, it isn’t particularly complex to experience. Anyone from adults to kids can enjoy seeing a talking mollusc shell who lives with his granny in a house that happens to be an Airbnb spot.
“You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”
Fleisher-Camp ‘happens’ to be the current resident and being trained in filmmaking, he decides to document the exploits and feelings of this delightful creature.
The resourceful Marcel is talkative yet shy, an enigma really, but his attitude towards life is worth emulating. Always interested in discovering the world around him, no matter how arduous it is to navigate distances and heights, the tiny guy is indeed an inspiring figure.
Because of the film’s meta-quality, the presence of the real-world camera and director becomes crucial in disavowing the seeming ludicrousness though ultimately playful conceit that is its concept of realism and authenticity.
A talking shell makes much more sense in a fantasy, but such is the film’s warmth and empathy toward what would have been an inanimate object that it gives itself the ultimate reason to exist: the privilege to treat someone/something with tender loving care.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 