Adapting their adorable stop-motion shorts into a warm-and-fuzzy feature, Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate will win your heart with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Eliza Janssen thinks there’s some historical depth to its family story, too.
I want a Marcel. A little Marcel with sticky feet to sit atop my car’s dashboard, a Marcel fridge magnet, a Marcel stuffed toy on a string for my cat to bat, Marcel earrings even. Despite the cheek-aching adorableness of Jenny Slate and her ex-husband Dean Fleischer-Camp’s viral stop-motion creation, the little guy’s feature film admirably avoids feeling like the cash-in I’m clearly down for.
Instead, we get a hopelessly sweet film that feels satisfyingly complete: not a string of Marcel the Shell shorts episodically strung into 90 minutes, nor a bloated “Cute Beloved Thing: The Movie” adaptation. It might also be the perfect kids movie for A24-loving adults and their kids, with just enough maturity and substance to bring audiences of all ages out of their shells.
Because Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is kind of about European-Jewish diaspora. Stay with me here, okay? Marcel, a half-inch tall talking shell with a single googly eye, has been living a miniature yet fulfilling life in a breezy AirBNB, alone save for curious insects and his elderly Nana Connie (a warm, breathy vocal performance from Isabella Rossellini). When Fleischer-Camp moves in after a devastating breakup, he, like us, is instantly smitten with Marcel’s hopeful perspective on the big world above.
But rather than broadcasting the dinky being’s cuteness for viral fame alone, their mission is somewhat more sobering. When the AirBNB’s owners broke up and separated their belongings, Nana and Marcel’s vibrant family of talking shells and other inanimate objects got lost in the shuffle, a small and melancholy facsimile of countless generational migration stories. Memories of his missing mother, father, brother (whose voice I recognised as Nathan Fielder within 0.5 seconds, proving that The Rehearsal definitely gave me brain worms) and more keep Marcel’s spirits up. And countless commenters cheering him on make his dream of a family reunion only stronger.
It’s been over a decade since the Marcel shorts got that same rapturous attention from internet gawkers, which might explain why director Fleischer-Camp and writer/lead voice actor Slate take a somewhat jaded approach to the fleeting and superficial power of online love.
It turns out the way to go is not bigger and broader, but in tradition and intimacy. Fleischer-Camp isn’t a particularly interesting character in the film, and his romantic subplot is wisely kept in the background. But he, and the encouraging Nana, bring out the best in Marcel, with their nightly 60 Minutes obsession becoming key to a tearjerking happy ending (“we watch 60 minutes because Lesley Stahl is fearless”, Marcel explains, deadpan).
The focus on old ways, small ways, brought me back to the family focus of Jenny Slate’s Netflix stand-up special Stage Fright, in which she does a caring impression of her own grandmother. Also named Connie. The old lady’s compliment to her quirky granddaughter could act as the entire thesis of Marcel The Shell With Shoes On: “you are gorgeous. And it’s not just that you’re gorgeous. It’s not just that you’re smart. It’s that you’re good.”
‘Hope-punk’ and the simple niceness of series like Ted Lasso might’ve proved a bit flimsy over the past few years of real-world doom and gloom. But by focusing its gentle humour and storytelling pathos on that deceptively simple message—that just being “good” is enough in a huge and often meaningless existence—the Marcel movie stands far taller than its weeny protagonist.
