Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a wonderful mockumentary/stop-motion hybrid that was first recommended to me by the filmmaker Albert Birney, who made Strawberry Mansion. Like many of the recent A24 releases, it took a while to come to the UK: whoever is handling their distribution here is an absolute moron, and don’t get me started on their home video releases (or lack thereof)… The film A24 won a Best Picture Oscar for still doesn’t have a Blu-Ray release here! Rant over, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is one of three films that evidenced a real renaissance in stop-motion animation last year, along with Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (which won the Best Animated Film Oscar) and Phil Tippet’s decades-in-the-making Mad God.
The film’s director/screenwriter Dean Fleischer Camp and the voice of Marcel/co-screenwriter Jenny Slate made a series of shorts featuring the title character of Marcel, who is indeed a Shell with Shoes On, back in 2010. The film serves as a direct stand-alone prequel and sequel to these shorts, but you do not need to have seen the shorts at all to watch the film. And you’ll mostly love it, unless you have the blackest heart.
Dean plays a fictionalised version of himself as a documentary filmmaker who rents an AirBnB and soon discovers an adorable little one-inch-tall talking shell living in the home with his grandmother, Nana Connie (Isabella Rossellini), and Alan, his pet ball of lint. Dean starts making YouTube videos about Marcel, and quickly Marcel becomes a cultural sensation. Marcel’s newfound fame and the fact that his world is opened up to the outside world is a double-edged sword, and as this is all happening his grandmother is also suffering from dementia.
The film does everything animation can do generally better than live-action filmmaking with the emotions it can implant into an audience. It’s a film that with the right audience member could absolutely devastate them emotionally, but in a positive way. It’s life-affirming, it’s funny, it has plenty to say about the human condition, our over-reliance on the Internet for connection and the perils that come with it, the pitfalls of celebrity, our place in the universe, grief and so on. It’s also incredibly funny and will put a smile on your face for the film’s running time of 90 minutes.
Dean Fleischer Camp is an exceptional talent, and it’s a crying shame he’s been coopted into the Disney universe with his next film, which is a live-action version of Lilo & Stich. However, if like like David Lowery he can juggle his Disney projects with more personal projects while injecting his own personality into the Disney films that would be great, but I’m not holding my breath. The voice work is exceptional in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and also the score from Disasterpeace is his finest work since Under the Silver Lake.
The Blu-Ray from Mediumrare only contains a trailer when it comes to special features, so if you are already a big fan you may want to consider importing the A24 release on Blu-Ray or 4K, which contains a commentary, the original shorts and a making-of feature.
★★★★½
Ian Schultz
psychotroniccinema.com 