Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Composite Score: 85.07
Starring: Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer Camp, Isabella Rossellini, Joe Gabler, Shari Finkelstein, Lesley Stahl, Rosa Salazar, and Thomas Mann
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Writers: Dean Fleischer Camp, Jenny Slate, and Nick Paley
Genres: Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy
MPAA Rating: PG for some suggestive material and thematic elements
Box Office: $6.91 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is the hybrid stop-motion and live action mockumentary about a shell with an eye and shoes, based on the 2010 YouTube series of the same name from Dean Fleischer Camp and his then partner, now ex-wife, Jenny Slate. The film stars Slate as the voice of the titular shell along with Fleischer Camp as a version of himself making the documentary about Marcel and Isabella Rossellini as the voice of Marcel’s Nana Connie. It follows Marcel as, with the help of Dean and Nana Connie, he seeks to find the rest of his community who went missing when the couple who owned the house where he lives split up two years prior. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and has been celebrated for its humor, heart, and moving story.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On exists in a very specific vein of cinema that caters to nostalgia, mourning, and hope, which can give it the feel of a sappy children’s movie in certain moments. It falls very heavily into the millennial feel-good style of filmmaking that has become popular in indie films of the early 2020s. Things end up working out fairly easily, conflicts resolve with minimal friction, and certain rules of the film’s universe don’t completely make sense or even stay consistent. That’s not to say that it isn’t still a great film, but I also know that there’s a lot of cynics in the world we live in who will come away from this film thinking that the whole thing is just too lighthearted to really work for them. I leave this bit of criticism for such viewers, so they don’t come after me when this goes up.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
The wonder of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On helps make it an elevated feel-good family film. A story about an animated shell with a funny voice who doesn’t fully grasp the realities of the human world sounds like something that would be relegated to a straight-to-streaming/DVD, in the bargain bin and never heard from again, but somehow, Fleischer Camp, Slate, and their co-writers Nick Paley and Elizabeth Holm have turned it into a film that explores so much of the human condition that it can’t be denied. Marcel’s story of seeking community is one that, though it features a childlike protagonist who is only a few inches tall, speaks to a wider audience of people who have become increasingly isolated in recent years and who desire to rekindle connections or find new connections that they never even had before. His journey to find that connection continues to showcase the modern human condition as Marcel discovers how big the world really is and how seemingly hopeless his quest to find that community appears to be. It’s only when his personality begins to gain virality that his quest begins to look feasible, which cynically feels all the more relevant today. However, even though he does reconnect with his community by the film’s end, the lesson that Marcel learns along the way is far more important and impactful. He realizes the importance of the people who help him along the way and is reminded that, with Dean and Connie, he’s not really alone. This is the message that we need: We are not alone in this big world; even when our friend group doesn’t look as large as we’d like it to, there are people who support us and stand in our corner and who want what’s best for us. It’s this truth that makes the emotional moments of Marcel so impactful and the loss that he feels all the more meaningful to the audience.
The film’s ability to portray truth in simplicity while giving its audience a heartfelt and moving story in the form of a silly mockumentary about a shell with shoes allows Marcel the Shell with Shoes On to rise above its premise and achieve film greatness. It might feel a little bit lighter and breezier than some films that we consider “great”, but sometimes that’s exactly what we need, especially when it can remind us that we have people standing at our side along the way. This film can currently be streamed with a Showtime subscription or can be rented on most other streaming platforms if you haven’t checked it out yet.
