‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On’ review: Takes a foothold on your heart and never lets go [Grade: A-] | SXSW
As time has gone on, and you grow up, one starts to notice that we live in a cynical, harsh world lacking the impulse to be kind and consume things that might be simple and sweet. Many tend to move to deeper dramas and films that speak to us in a profound way, that tend to come from indie studios or auteur director who we’ve grown attached to. But there are movies that come along and melt the block of ice surrounding our hearts and take us back to a place in time where curiosity, warmness, and the innocence of life that makes them essential viewing. In the last decade, this came in the form of the Paddington series, where a mischievous, adorable little bear changed the lives of not just his family on screen, but audiences around the world. As we enter a new decade, Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is easily the leader in the clubhouse on taking Paddington’s title of being the most earnest, heartfelt film that we desperately need right now.
Adapted from characters created in various YouTube short films that went viral over the last ten years, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On starts with us meeting the titular Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate), as he is talking to Dean (Fleischer-Camp playing a version of himself) about who he is and where he lives. Marcel is a one-inch-tall shell that has one eye and wears a pink pair of shoes. Living in a large California house, he travels around inside a tennis ball, getting food for him and his grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini), as they are the only two members of their family left after a breakup between the openers of the house (Rosa Salazar and Thomas Mann) caused them to pack up their stuff, and Marcel’s family get trapped in a suitcase, not to be seen for years. The house has since been turned into an Airbnb, thus insert Dean, a documentarian who just got out of a relationship and is looking for a fresh start, and in doing so, found a new subject to cover in Marcel.
The filmmaker and his new friend explore Marcel’s day to day life, relationship with his family, and run ins with bugs and other animals that he mostly stays away from. As they are filming all of this, Dean starts to take his footage and put it online, and they go viral, much like what happened to the original Marcel the Shell collaborations. In using his new celebrity, Marcel asks those involved to help him and Dean try to discover the locations of his missing family with the minimal clues he has. While it doesn’t work to the fullest, he is able to land a big interview that could hold the key as to the whereabouts of the location of his lost relatives.
In doing this, we learn that this tiny little character has a heart of gold, wanting to not just connect with Dean, but also the care he puts in daily for his Granny Connie, who is starting to lose more and more of herself as the days go on. He starts to reconsider because of Connie’s health and the fact that he is scared of more change in his life, since it took so long for him to get back to a place of comfortability, and doing this could lead to changes that young Marcel won’t be able to take back once they happen. By pursuing what is missing in his life, Marcel examines his internal feelings and decide if what he has is enough or if he wants more than the mostly quiet, lonely life he’s had before Dean. In doing this, he discovers that this is something we all do at one point in our lives, which is start growing out of our adolescence and become a more mature version of ourselves.
Slate and Fleischer-Camp, who were previously married but have since become creative partners, have crafted something endearing and special with this brisk, simple, poetic little film. With a hilarious, kindhearted meta screenplay, these creatives inject their personal history into the characters that brought them together, thus making this an exceptional, unique effort. In dabbling in the cute and simple, it is able to speak profoundly about many issues facing all of us right in our day to day lives and shows us it is okay to embrace the new challenges that life throws at us. Marcel’s struggles in his life and his ability to overcome his fears is inspiring and exactly what we need right now in our trying times. Mix his touching relationship with his grandmother and his moving bond with Dean, this little shell is a fully fledged gem of a being, one we should embrace and leave our cynical hearts and minds at the door when visiting his film.
With a perfect 90-minute run time, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On never overstays its welcome, balancing gut-busting humor with the right of soul-stirring emotions. This is the kind of movie that shows us that optimism and kindness are the ultimate driving force for life, and something we can never run low on nor show we take for granted.
Grade: A-
This review is from the SXSW Film Festival. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On will be released in theaters by A24.
Image credit: A24
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