Starring: Dean Fleischer-Camp, Shari Finkelstein, Lesley Stahl. Voices of Jenny Slate, Isabella Rossellini
Distributor: Universal
Runtime: 90 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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Marcel is a one-inch shell, with one eye, wearing shoes, lost with his grandmother, Connie, but filmed by an eager director, leading to an appearance on 60 Minutes and finding his family of fellow-shells again.
Who is Marcel – and why a Shell with Shoes On? The first question is easy enough to answer: Marcel is a one-inch high shell (but with a very large roving eye) who lives in the city and has been separated, along with his Nanna Connie, from his bigger shell family. They are lost. That part of the answer was easy – but we should add that Marcel began his media life as a short film, then a You Tube serial, devised by writer-director, Fleischer-Camp in 2012 with his then wife, Slate. In 2021, Marcel finds himself with Connie, who has suffered an injury, cracking her shell, at Fleischer-Camp’s home. Marcel agrees to be the centre of a documentary Fleischer-Camp is making, but the continual filming has become tiring. Fleischer-Camp is working once again with Slate, in the writing and in her voicing of Marcel.
And the second question: why the shoes? This reviewer must have missed the explanation. But we do notice that after Connie’s death, Marcel’s shoes are painted, from the red to the black. Marcel and Connie and their activities are filmed with stop motion techniques and puppetry.
In fact, the plot becomes quite complicated, Marcel eager to find the previous owner of Dean’s house who took the drawer full of other shells with them. So, something of a quest. And the film spends a lot of time in showing Marcel’s bond with his Nanna, Connie. It is sad when health declines and she dies.
With Fleischer-Camp continually filming, and Marcel not averse to the media, especially liking compere, Lesley Stahl, on the US 60 Minutes program, there is a great emphasis on media. Fleischer-Camp develops little movies on the activities of Marcel and puts them on You Tube (as actually happened in the past with the short films). But Marcel is delighted when the producer of 60 Minutes requests a story.
Later, we see the program and Marcel’s plea to locate the family who took the shells – and, with the power of the media, or, at least, 60 Minutes, the family is located working in Guatemala. Happy ending, of course.
It is hoped that this description helps audiences decide whether they would like to make Marcel’s acquaintance. If there is any doubt, best to check the many blog comments on the IMDb, fans who love Marcel, cute, adorable, healing the heart… And that has been the critical response, especially in the US.
(So, a wary postscript to this review to say that this reviewer found Marcel and his adventures far too twee)
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