Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
The adorable series of YouTube shorts featuring Jenny Slate as a cute sea shell with a googly eye and a pair of tiny trainers get a big-screen update
Movies adapted from YouTube videos don’t have the best track record, meaning Dean Fleischer-Camp’s stop-motion/mockumentary hybrid about an ultra-adorable animated shell with feet and a singular googly eye might be the best of its kind. When documentarian Dean (played by Fleischer-Camp) sets up shop in an Airbnb after separating from his wife, he discovers Marcel, an anthropomorphised shell manoeuvring around the home thanks to minuscule, well-crafted apparati.
The more Dean investigates Marcel’s world, the more the shell opens him up to a gentler way of viewing those around him, and they each prove to be the perfect friend to help process their respective personal struggles. Its inherent sweetness may sound off-putting, but Marcel... rarely leans too far into saccharine, resulting in an emotional and compelling foray into a beautiful animated, Borrowers-esque way of life.
Marcel is voiced by Jenny Slate, and while her highly cutesy tenor initially risks sounding shrill, thankfully Marcel’s observations all contribute to a well-rounded characterisation. What’s more, her dynamic with an older shell, Connie (a brilliant Isabella Rossellini, who sounds like she’s still not totally sure of the project's premise) brings out a compassion and anxiety in Marcel that make some sequences razor-sharp in tension and filled with heartbreak. Problems only arise when Marcel lands an appearance on 60 Minutes, a plotline that suffers from directly explaining why the filmmakers think Marcel is appealing as a film. The more time watching those shells toddle about, the better.
Released 17 Feb by Universal; certificate PG