Kymm Zuckert Marvels at Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2022, dir. Dean Fleischer-Camp, US)

“My cousin fell asleep in a pocket, and that’s why I don’t like the saying, ‘everything comes out in the wash,’ because sometimes it doesn’t. Or sometimes it does, and they’re just like a completely different person.”

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On was originally a short film of a stop-motion anthropomorphic shell wearing tiny shoes that was a viral hit in 2010, made by director Dean Fleischer-Camp and performer Jenny Slate, who were a married couple at the time.

Jenny and Dean made two more shorts and a couple of children’s books, but then they got divorced, and if you are like me, when you heard the news you were like, “But what about Marcel?” I say all this as though they are my close friends, which they are not. They have a right to live their lives as they need to, but it just seemed tragic for the future of Marcel.

Fortunately, it seems that, like many a divorced couple who need to get along for the sake of the children, they still have a good working relationship, and thus, Marcel lives on in this charming feature length film! Hooray!

In the film, Dean (Dean Fleischer-Camp), is going through a breakup and moves into an Airbnb, discovers that he is sharing the house with Marcel (Jenny Slate), and instead of completely freaking out, starts making a film about him.

Marcel tells us, the audience, that there used to be lots of shells, a whole family, but one day the couple who lived there got in a big fight, and most of the family accidentally got packed when the man stormed out, never to return, leaving only Marcel and his grandmother, Connie (played by the woman with one of the greatest voices in history, Isabella Rossellini). Marcel tells us that she is from the garage, that’s why she has a different accent.

It is hard for only two shells to get by on their own — Marcel tells us that it takes twenty shells to make a community, but Marcel and Connie, through hard work and ingenuity, make it work. But he really hopes that someday he can find his lost family.

Dean puts a short film about Marcel on YouTube, (sound familiar?), both of them hoping that it might help Marcel find his family, but literally all they get is a bunch of people wanting to take selfies of the house. Marcel says that he was hoping for a community, but they were just an audience.

But that isn’t the end, there are surprises in store, and this isn’t the kind of movie that is going to end dismally, though there is some sadness along the way.

This movie is utterly delightful, not only because it is cute and funny, but because it has a lot of deep things to say about family, and connections, and making friends. It frankly could have been kind of twee, but Marcel can be a little acerbic, and that squeeze of lemon just balances the whole story.

I mostly entirely forgot that it was animated, Marcel seems so real, and his relationship with Dean, trying to help him, but also trying to make a documentary, is funny and heartwarming.

The real question is, how did this tiny film, in the year of our Lord 2022, actually get a theatrical release? All I can say is, thank goodness, because the big screen shouldn’t only belong to the Minions and the Top Guns. Small movies about tiny shells in tiny shoes longing for connection belong there too.

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog