For all its whimsical humour and wacky conceits, this surreal stop-motion mockumentary sensitively deals with loss, reconciliation and grief, writes Steven Ryder.
Trying to concisely summarise the appeal of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a monumental task – despite its central character’s diminutive size. Yes, Marcel is a tiny, talking hermit-crab shell with a single googly eye glued to his exterior and a pair of miniature pink tennis shoes on his feet. Yes, he lives, covertly, in an Airbnb with his ageing Nana (also a shell) after being separated from his wider family. And, to give Marcel the Shell with Shoes On an extra layer of eccentricity, the entire narrative is framed as a faux documentary. It’s fair to say that the line between its appeal as light-hearted family film and surreal adult comedy is somewhat blurred.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)
But for those willing to accept the many fragments of whimsy in this live-action/animation hybrid, the journey we take with the accidentally existential Marcel reveals complexities that audiences may not expect. Marcel, voiced by the delightfully gravelly Jenny Slate, is first introduced through the lens of Dean, a documentarian looking for a new project to throw himself into. Fascinated by this unusual shell’s perspective on the world, Dean decides to film his new acquaintance going about his everyday life in a clever, imaginatively framed fashion: be it accompanying Marcel as he fishes for food in a bowl of soup or interviewing him while he is carefully balanced on a record-player needle. As these two lost souls spend more time together, they begin to realise that their wildly divergent lives may share common threads of loss, reconciliation and grief.
With a premise so charming and offbeat, it may seem surprising that director Dean Fleischer Camp (here playing a fictionalised version of himself) is interested in exploring something as acute as the grieving process. However, when looking into the production’s origins, themes begin to crystallise. Marcel the Shell originally began life on YouTube as a series of short, animated films, created by Fleischer Camp in 2010 alongside Slate, his wife at the time. These original shorts are slight and twee, but originate the beautifully constructed set pieces that give the feature its pleasant, idiosyncratic visual style. When the co-creators ended their marriage in 2016, the two nevertheless continued to develop a feature-length Marcel the Shell narrative together and appear to have incorporated aspects of their real-life experiences into the script.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)
Although the camera and questions are mostly pointed at Marcel, the film is grounded by its human element, provided by the largely disembodied character of Dean. His moments of melancholy gently seep into the film, primarily through Marcel’s own curiosity and blunt observations, and we are eventually given enough breadcrumbs to decipher that Dean is living in the Airbnb after a recent separation from his wife, dealing with the aftermath of this heartbreak by throwing himself into his work as a filmmaker. What begins as an observational documentary soon becomes a purposeful one, as Dean becomes obsessed with helping Marcel locate his missing family via social media. While Dean’s mission is one of great empathy for his sweet, scaled-down friend, there is also a concern he is living vicariously through Marcel, and searching for some sort of reconciliation and order in his life after a sudden loss – in this case, his relationship.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)
The great meta-trick of Marcel the Shell is that we are seeing a fictional filmmaker’s subconscious motivations play out on screen in front of us as he documents the relationship between Marcel and his Nana Connie, who, in turn, provide the emotional foregrounding of the actual film’s themes. Voiced with resonance by the great Isabella Rossellini, Nana Connie is Marcel’s last remaining tie to his extended family, who they became separated from after the previous inhabitants left the house following, interestingly, a messy breakup. The two shells share the utmost love for each other, and yet there is a dark cloud hanging over their relationship. Marcel states that Nana ‘has lost a small piece of a very large puzzle’ – a heartbreaking indication that she may be suffering from age-related dementia.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)
The tenderness on show as Nana Connie begins to slip away from Marcel is handled with an immense sensitivity considering the wackiness surrounding it, something Slate has gone on record as being an important element of the film to her personally. As the film’s denouement unfolds, the silly and the serious overlap and complement each other, but the core message remains clear. Through its eponymous character, filled with unbridled optimism, we are reminded that the experience of loss is universal and our greatest tool for coping with grief can be found in the empathy, support and fraternity of those who are still with us.