Feature adaptation of the animated short film interviewing a mollusk named Marcel.
Chuck says:
Giving a negative review to a film like “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” is akin to kicking a puppy. It shouldn’t be done, you’re going to come off looking bad and deep down, you know you’re wrong to do so. Yet this feature, directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp and based on a series of short films he made with Jenny Slate, left me feeling manipulated rather than moved. Without question, the movie’s theme needs to be shouted from the rooftops and the intent of all involved is a noble one. However, the heavy-handed method Fleischer-Camp, et. al., employ to get their message regarding the power of kindness across nearly undercuts their good intentions.
Right away, you know that “whimsey” is the watchword regarding the film’s tone. Marcel (voice by Slate) is a shell that has someone achieved consciousness. There’s no crab or any other living organism in the husk – Marcel is just a shell, with one very large, expressive eye. He’s living in a wall, as well as various other tucked away recesses with his grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini), also a shell, in a house once inhabited by Larissa and Clark (Rosa Salazar and Thomas Mann). Just to be clear, they’re people.
After a series of bitter fights, they’ve left the home, which is now a rental, the abandoned Marcel distraught over the loss of her “family.” The house’s current inhabitant, Dean (Fleischer-Camp), who happens to be a documentary filmmaker, discovers Marcel and Connie, and decides they will be the subject of his next feature. Once some of his footage is released it causes a sensation, strangers from around the world contacting Marcel in an effort to help him find his family. Even Lesley Stahl lends a hand, doing a story on the shell for “60 Minutes.”
There’s no shortage of clever moments throughout as we see Marcel travel about the house inside a tennis ball, walk up walls with the aid of honey coating the bottom of his shoes and display his musical talents by whistling through a piece of elbow macaroni. And the fact that Marcel, Connie and other tiny objects that appear are rendered with simple stop-motion effects is a welcome respite in this age of overwrought digitally rendered entertainments. This contributes greatly to their charm.
And yet, it all seems a bit twee. Far too often, Fleischer-Camp lays the sentiment on with a trowel, pushing Marcel’s naivete just a bit too far at times. Slate’s affected, high-pitched voicework doesn’t help nor do abrupt cuts, overlapping conversations and quickly delivered dialogue. These factors conspire at times to keep the viewer at arm’s length.
Rossellini though is wonderful. She knows neither the material nor her character needs any sort of embellishment. The actor grounds the film with her genuine approach, providing a deft touch that humanizes her character in a way that escapes Slate. A sequence in which she explains the purpose of each living thing in her garden is a sublime moment, one that subtly drives home the film’s theme of benevolent interconnectivity without overstating it. More moments such as this would have been of great benefit.
In the end, the sentiment it so unabashedly proclaims trumps “Marcel’s” shortcomings. In this moment, there seems so little to rejoice, it would seem a waste to discard the movie’s worthy sentiment. At this point, I’ll take a flawed film proclaiming a genuine message of hope even though it’s only a 90-minute escape. Besides, any story containing a pet piece of lint named Allen deserves to be cut a bit of slack.
2 1/2 Stars
