OSCARS 2023: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)

In 2010, beloved stand-up/“SNL” cast member Jenny Slate and her animator husband Dean Fleisher Camp posted “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” to Youtube. The thoroughly adorable three-minute short quickly went viral, spawning two follow-ups and a children's book. The success would prompt Slate and Camp to team up with the Chiodo Brothers – the stop-motion specialists behind “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” – to make a feature length “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.” A24, obviously hoping to extend their domination of the indie movie market into the realm of children's movies, would quickly pick the movie up for distribution. Continuing the surprisingly robust year the company has had at the Academy Awards, “Marcel” would earn a Best Animated Feature nomination. 

Marcel is a mollusk with one great big eye, who traverse his home from within his curly shell with a pair of shoes on his feet. He lives with his elderly grandmother, Connie, in an AirBnB. That is where a filmmaker named Dean discovers the charming shell and begins to document his life. Marcel and Connie used to live in an expansive community of shells but they all vanished – including Marcel's parents – when the man and the woman who own the home acrimoniously separated. Dean puts the short video he made about Marcel on the internet, where the little guy soon gathers a following. This begins Marcel's quest to be reunited with his family, though it will not be a smooth journey.

The original “Marcel” shorts were essentially cute little gag comedies, with the shell delivering absurd observations about life when you're so small. The movie includes a lot of these jokes, even recycling a few of the better ones. Such the facts of Marcel's bed or his "dog." Or what happens when the shells stand on a laptop keyboard. Yet the movie manages to move beyond simple comedy. Through his relationship with Nana Connie — voiced wonderfully by Isabella Rossellini, bringing a little "Green Porno" energy to this kid's flick — Marcel experiences some important life lessons. About having courage, being afraid, needing to explore the world, and the inevitability of loss. These themes, supported by the naturalistic mockumentary visuals and an ambient musical score, create a quietly reflective atmosphere. This pairs nicely with such a ridiculously adorable character, Slate's muttering vocal performance never becoming too overwhelmingly cutesy. 

More than anything else, “Marcel” is a movie about community. To the tiny little mollusks, a suburban house seems as massive as the whole wide world. Marcel's grandmother traveling from the garage to the house as a child is compared to an immigrant coming from one country to another. This seems to emphasize how lonely the two critters are, creating their little existence out of the everyday objects laying around the house. Marcel describes the happier times with his parents and the rest of their friends, the egalitarian life they had, helping each other out. It's the little shell's desire to reconnect with this – which has him making friends with Dean as well – that drives the narrative. 

Amusingly, the film has a little bit more than just that on its mind too. The initial short about Marcel being posted to the internet is incorporated into the film's story. After the video goes from 88 views to 22 million overnight, Marcel suddenly has to grapple with being an internet celebrity. People track down the house and do TikTok dances outside it, while filling the Youtube comment sections with nothing but basic observations. This frustrates Marcel, as none of this stuff brings him closer to finding his family. Soon, the little shell is covering the windows with newspaper to dispel the constant attention. He comments that the viewers online are an audience, not a community, which is a salient observation about fame in the ephemeral internet era. 

While “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” features its share of melancholy, it's mostly a delightful experience. The stop motion animation – a considerable step-up from the frequently crude movements seen in the original shorts – has a charming, home-made quality to it. The way Marcel and his fellow shells have made a little world for themselves at such a small level is adorable. He climbs inside a tennis ball and rolls it around. He fashions a needle and a match into little weapons. Chairs and walkers are made from twisted up paperclips, while tissues form blankets and pillows. Elaborate contractions are strapped together, from ropes and an electric mixer, to shake nuts from trees outside. Meanwhile, bugs and little spiders are friends and companions for Marcel and his grandmother. There's something adorably earthy about the movie's point of view, creative solutions being found for problems that we normal sized folks take for granted. 

“Marcel the Shell” is full of laughs too, Slate's squeaky delivery often bringing a quiet sort of sarcasm with it. The role Marcel and her grandmother's fandom of “60 Minutes” plays in the story is also extremely charming. “Charming” is really the word of the day here, as “Marcel” is a funny, sweet, and softly touching little motion picture. It seems unlikely to win but I'm glad the Academy didn't exclude it from the Animated Feature category, due to the large amount of flesh-and-blood actors in the film. (Which includes a surprise appearance from “Battle Angel's” Rosa Salazar.) Camp already has his next gig lined-up: The live action version of “Lilo & Stitch” at Disney, which has zero chance of being as likable as this one is. [8/10]