Mark Reviews Movies: MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 30, 2022

We should start, perhaps, with the unassailable fact that Marcel—a sentient, one-inch tall sea shell that has one googly eye and wears shoes (It's not entirely clear if the shoes count toward the height)—is adorable. That's largely a matter of design, which is founded upon simplicity, as the character possesses only four elements (a body, an eye, a mouth, and those shoes), and ensuring that each of those design components is as cute as can be. That Marcel is brought to life by way of some basic and jittery stop-motion animation only adds to the character's charms.

There's also, though, the matter of Marcel's personality, which makes up the entire core of the story of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. There's no real plot here. No villain makes schemes against the little guy. We just get to spend time with Marcel, in his home and on a brief adventure into a small part of the wide world, and figure out what makes him tick. That's all this story needs, because Marcel is such a fun and funny, hopelessly naïve but endlessly hopeful, and easily awed but deeply sad character that he adds a touch of something to even the most mundane things.

This is a great character in a film that understands that idea just enough to simply allow Marcel to exist as he is. To be sure, the screenplay by director/human co-star Dean Fleischer-Camp, Nick Paley, and vocal star Jenny Slate probably could have dug a bit deeper into the character's growing realization of the world beyond his house and/or uncovered more details about his everyday life. Maybe that would have been a betrayal of the character and the film's very strengths, or perhaps the filmmakers would have unintentionally discovered the limits of the core simplicity here.

Either option or some other unforeseen, unfortunate turn might have been possible. That's the downside, though, of creating a character as loveable as this one: We're disappointed we didn't get more of or from him.

Even so, what we do get of and from Marcel is definitely something. That's what matters right here and now.

Marcel, voiced by Slate, lives in an empty house with his grandmother Connie, who is voiced by Isabella Rossellini (and whose accent is accounted for by her origins being from the garage, which is the kind of tiny, sweet, unnecessary, and wholly consistent detail that fills up so much of the humor here). The rest of Marcel's much-bigger family, we learn, has disappeared. This house used to be a home to a couple of humans (played by Rosa Salazar and Thomas Mann), but their happy relationship turned sour and angry.

Marcel and his family would hide in the sock drawer whenever the yelling and the stomping would begin, and during one night of fighting, the man packed all of his things into a suitcase and left. Part of his packing included the sock drawer. That's why it's only Marcel and his grandma living here now, as well as why the house has become a rental unit for assorted temporary guests, from whom the two shells hide.

Anyway, the narrative gimmick here involves Dean, a documentary filmmaker and the rental's most recent guest (dealing with a marital separation that he avoids discussing, which adds a hint of real-world pathos if one knows the director and Slate made a series of three shorts about Marcel when they were previously married). Fleischer-Camp, mostly off-camera, plays Dean, who has found Marcel and has decided to record the little shell's daily life and to post those videos online. Eventually, Marcel becomes an internet star, and with that fame, he decides to ask his fans for help to find his family. The shell quickly learns that internet-celebrity status doesn't create a family or community—just an audience that wants to become part of that fame.

That's the extent of any kind of plotting here, and it's basically the correct amount. Most of the film just revels in Marcel's innocence and ingenuity. In terms of the latter, there are the various contraptions he has set up around the house, such connecting a mixing machine to the branch of an orange tree with rope in order to shake free some snacks, and the smart use of a tennis ball as a means of transportation. One might wonder how Marcel got or made rope in the first place, and that answer, which has to do with some curly leftovers near the shower drain, gets at the heart of the character's innocence.

Slate's vocal performance is perfectly attuned to that childlike quality of Marcel and, in that same regard, also encapsulates the curiosity and sense of wonder of the little guy. The real kicker, though, comes from flashes of wry wisdom that enter into the performance, without losing track of the character's virtue. There's a moment, for example, when Marcel wants the help of his human co-habitant, who has a hands-off approach to making documentary. In response, Marcel cuts deep into Dean's character flaws with a level of honesty that it would seem cruel, if not for how well the film and Slate establish that Marcel is incapable of such a thing.

Detailing much more would be to give away the film's gags (plentiful but increasingly repetitive, which would be an issue with a lesser character), as well as its more unexpected (how Marcel's favorite TV show figures into his search) and poignant (how Connie shows her unconditional love for her grandson by not showing Marcel what she's experiencing) story developments. Instead, the main takeaway is that Marcel the Shell with Shoes On gives us a unique character, while the film thrives by encapsulating his lovely and loveable spirit.

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