Marcel the Shell With Shoes On film review — animated seashell makes it big in the real world

Like many of the best films and books with deep transgenerational appeal, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On feels simultaneously strange and comfortingly familiar, like a half-remembered dream. The protagonist is nothing more or less than the title’s description: a seashell roughly an inch high with one googly eye, an animated mouth and trainers made of modelling clay. Brought to life via stop-motion animation within an otherwise live-action world, Marcel has just enough body parts to create a deeply expressive little character, whose constant burbling stream of chatter was semi-improvised by actor Jenny Slate — who co-wrote the film with the director, Dean Fleischer-Camp (also Slate’s ex-husband).

Don’t let Marcel’s breathy, soprano chirp fool you into thinking he is merely cute. He’s also a bit of a prankster, and not above throwing a little shade at Dean for being a sad sack who spends his days interviewing Marcel and Marcel’s grandma Connie (Isabella Rossellini).

Nana Connie gardens during the day while Marcel and his pet lint ball mooch about, sleeping at night in his “breadroom” between two slices of white bread. But the quietude of their existence is disrupted when Dean turns them into internet superstars overnight. That plot point mirrors how the original homemade short films about Marcel by Slate and Fleischer-Camp went viral back in 2010, while a strand about the bickering couple who used to live in the house maybe echoes the disintegration of the filmmakers’ own real-life relationship.

A wistful theme of loss and loneliness runs through the film, which was nominated for an Oscar last month for Best Animated Feature. We learn that Marcel and Nana Connie were once part of a large community of shells, but an unfortunate incident reduced their number down to just two. Meanwhile Nana Connie is losing her memory and growing weak. How Marcel copes with this shell-cracking stress forms a beautiful final act that’s tender but never twee thanks to adept comic timing and playful use of scale.

★★★★☆

In cinemas in the UK from February 17