There are so many things to adore about the film ‘Marcel the Shell With Shoes On’, it’s tough to know where to start. But before we even do, let’s address the elephant…….er, I guess I should say, anthropomorphic shell….in the room.
A live-action movie using stop-motion to tell the story of a talking shell with one googly eye and a tiny pair of tennis shoes? I get it. It’s odd. But sweep aside that skepticism for, say, two and a half minutes – OR approximately how long it will take you to watch the sweet trailer for the movie – and you’d have to have one granite-like heart to not immediately fall in love with this little guy. And once you do settle in to this motion picture, based on series of viral videos from the early 2010’s by filmmaker Dean Fleischer-Camp and former ‘Saturday Night Live’ cast member Jenny Slate, you’re going to discover one of the most charming, poignant and magnificent movies of 2022.
The original minds behind the character both return for this feature, Fleischer-Camp playing Dean, a documentary filmmaker (geez, typecasting or what, Dean?) and Slate as the unmistakable, cute n’ squeaky voice of Marcel. Renting an Airbnb only to find it’s inhabited by the resourceful seashell and his grandmother, Nanna Connie (Isabella Rossellini), Dean is so captivated by Marcel’s spunk and resourcefulness, he films his daily activities, including the shell’s frequent observations on life, making for an endless, gut-busting session of improvisation from Slate. Both Marcel’s sarcastic riffs and thoughtful (and sometimes unavoidably heartbreaking) tangents were the real heart of this character’s success on YouTube, and thankfully, they transition beautifully to the big screen.
Presented pretty much as the faux documentary that Fleischer-Camp is piecing together within the film, ‘Marcel the Shell With Shoes On’ flips to adventure mode when the shell shares with his human friend that he’d like to try and track down his family. The goal turns him into a social media superstar, which in turn provides a remarkable insight into the world…yes, the same world WE live in….and all of us trying to find connection and belonging after emerging from a global crisis. Looking at the ‘hits’ his videos are receiving online with Dean, Marcel sadly observes, “This is just an audience. It isn’t a community.”
Yowtch. Quite the profound gut punch from the little guy.
But then, that’s Marcel. He’s almost like a wee-sized Forrest Gump, helping us absorb and relate to material that can be a little scary to face, or even think about. Because through his innocent eyes (okay, EYE), it just doesn’t seem as scary.
I loved, loved, loved ‘Marcel the Shell With Shoes On’. This is a film that proves…with an exclamation point….that there’s beauty and brilliance in simplicity.
