I don’t want to lose everything in the hope of something

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2023

#14 : Marcel The Shell With Shoes On

What this existential exoskeleton lacks in shoe size, he makes up for in heart. Dean Fleischer Camp’s boundary-pushing stop-motion animation is a winning blend of visual splendour and worldbuilding, and the creative talents of Jenny Slate, whose voice fills our small calcified warrior with wit, warmth and wisdom beyond his years. Don’t be fooled by the film’s seemingly twee set-up; Marcel is undeniably cute but the film, which is co-written by Slate, treads a thoughtful path through loss, pain, and a quest for identity. That it was able to muscle its way onto an Oscar nomination list alongside animation from Guillermo del Toro (a staunch and vocal Marcel fan), DreamWorks and Pixar, only goes to show that with its scrappy spirit and ambition, this high entry on our list has touched the masses. You might say that we, too, fell for Marcel.

I'd read a few reviews on this and thought its quirkiness would be right up my street, so was looking forward to it.

Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) is, as you might guess, a shell (with shoes on) who also happens to be one inch high. He lives with his grandma, Nana Connie (quite obviously voiced by Isabella Rossellini) and Alan (his pet ball of lint) in a normal house, which is rented out as an Airbnb to Dean (Dean Fleischer Camp), a video documentarian. Dean discover Marcel and is intrigued by his routine and uploads videos about him, which soon go viral and we also learn there used to be a whole shell family in the house but they disappeared. Could the power of social and mainstream media possibly solve the mystery as to where they went? I wonder..

It's an odd one because obviously the set-up is very quirky, but in no time at all you're just accepting Marcel and Connie as perfectly normal characters in this set-up. And lovely they are too with Marcel's youthful innocence and Connie's experience giving us their homespun wisdom and outsider view of everyday behaviour, particularly online activity.

It's also very existential - why are we here? Where even is here? And what happens when we aren't here any more? It has a lovely take on loss, grief and acceptance - it's weird how you just take the wise words on offer from a one inch high snail (with shoes on). It also has a surprisingly cute scene in it involving carsickness, which isn't something that seems an obvious source of cuteness.

Your almost immediate acceptance of the very unusual set-up is a testament to the film-making - it features beautiful stop-motion animation in a live action setting, combined with some excellent voice acting. Jenny Slate is superb as Marcel - you imagine her voice could get really annoying, but it just seems to fit perfectly. Dean Fleischer Camp also sells the set-up well, perfectly happy to talk to these tiny little things and explain the world to them - it’s also really well thought through where everyday objects are used in a different scale. 

A lot of credit has to go to the screenplay because it's all so well put together and full of so many lovely lines and touches that we have to namecheck the writers - who are Dean and Jenny (who used to be married) and Nick Paley (I've no idea who he is). The film was rewarded with an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, losing out to Pinocchio - which was good but not, for me, nearly as enjoyable as this.

Yes, I can see you might think it's going to be too quirky for you but it's just utterly charming whilst being heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time - so I'd recommend you give it a chance! I loved it and writing it up has just made me want to watch it again - I've just got a warm feeling inside thinking about it. If you want to watch it, it's currently available to stream on Sky Cinema or to rent at all the usual locations - if you fancy a bit of homespun wisdom wrapped up in quirk, then I thoroughly recommend you check this out.

#15 - An impressive piece of film-making
#13 - A surprising amount of depth