Judging by its trailer, Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On might come off as utterly silly—and in parts, it very enjoyably is. But, ironically, its hero, a charmingly ridiculous one-eyed shell with feet, ranks among the single most human movie characters of 2022. This substantial little tale of survival, loyalty, and courage is excellent family fare that won’t insult adults’ intelligence or bore them.
Marcel the Shell (voiced by actress and co-screenwriter Jenny Slate) originated as a solo character in Fleischer-Camp’s online stop-motion shorts, and this part-animated, part-live-action feature explores the roots of Marcel’s seeming uniqueness. Fleischer-Camp plays his own alter ego, filmmaker Dave, who inadvertently discovers Marcel and his grandmother, Connie (the voice of Isabella Rossellini), living covertly in an Airbnb he’s rented. The Shells’ family and others like them vanished when the house’s previous occupants broke up.
Dave films a documentary around Marcel’s day-to-day life, which mainly centers on the Rube Goldberg-like inventions Marcel has built to harness his gigantic, potentially hostile surroundings. As Dave’s videos make Marcel a YouTube sensation, Marcel sets out to find his kin. The improbable story plays like a combination of The Incredible Shrinking Man, David Holzman’s Diary, and Charlotte’s Web.
Marcel the Shell is made doubly appealing by its handmade stop-motion animation, which is a relief from the slick, homogenized CGI cartoons that have overtaken the artform. The film’s crew—particularly animation director Kirsten Lepore, supervising animation director Stephen Chiodo, and their team—deserves praise. The seeming simplicity of Marcel scuttling through his daily routine has a lovable DIY quality that enhances the story’s humanity, thanks to the animators’ meticulous, time-consuming labors.
With their very fine voice acting, Slate and Rossellini are the film’s backbone, truly imbuing their characters with life. That Marcel the Shell sprang from a small creative team is vividly apparent. Slate, Fleischer-Camp, and co-writers Nick Paley and Elisabeth Holm bring far more imagination and personality to this modest project than any of the committee-made cartoon spectacles playing alongside it in theaters. The film’s easygoing pace and lack of explosions and mayhem are also a treat. These virtues serve as reminders of so many things that popular animation has lost.
For parents, Marcel the Shell also opens a rich line of discussion with kids about, among other diverse topics, the best and worst aspects of technology—in particular, social media. As Marcel’s online popularity grows, he disgustedly discovers the difference between “an audience” and “a community.” He is eventually confronted with other, more profound concerns, and the film confronts these life lessons with care, grace, and dignity.
It’s hard to criticize such an inventive movie, but Marcel the Shell could have easily been shorter, and it slips into preciousness, at times. Those quibbles aside, within its fanciful framework, it’s frequently hilarious and, at times, genuinely poignant. It’s virtually devoid of dreary jadedness, and it has a winning protagonist who’s worth rooting for. To accomplish all that with a main character that’s basically a conglomeration of random bits and pieces culled from a craft store’s cutout bin is an exceptional achievement. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a lovely film, and well worth seeing.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On