‘Marcel The Shell With Shoes On’ Review: an overly sentimental, yawn-inducing mess
One of the most unique films to receive a nomination at the Academy Awards is undoubtedly this year’s animated feature Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Based on a series of stop-motion short films created by Dean Fleischer Camp and his then-partner Jenny Slate, the movie is Fleischer Camp’s feature-length debut. Though certainly an innovative idea, blending live-action mockumentary with stop-motion to blur the lines between fact and fiction, the movie itself is something of a saccharine mess.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On follows an anthropomorphic shell, Marcel, that lives with his grandma in the crevices of an Airbnb. After Dean, voiced by director Dean Fleischer Camp, moves into the building, he discovers the happy-go-lucky talking creature and decides to make a documentary about him. Soon enough, Marcel becomes an online phenomenon when Dean uploads clips of him to YouTube. However, the shell reveals that the rest of his family and friends used to live in the house too, only to be accidentally packed away when hiding from the bickering couple that used to live there. Subsequently, Dean uses the power of the internet to attempt to reunite Marcel with his loved ones.
Voiced by Jenny Slate, Marcel’s personality is excessively cutesy, which often teeters towards annoying. Although he has a fair few funny lines, Marcel also delivers many hopelessly trite quips, such as “Guess why I smile a lot? Because it’s worth it”. Your emotional connection to Marcel will depend on how naturally inclined towards sentimentality you are; thus, for many of us, watching the shell engage in aggressively wholesome activities often feels tiresome. Overly optimistic, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is sugary sweet and extremely predictable, minimising its emotional punch.
In an attempt to comment on the power of the internet, Fleischer Camp’s film feels instantly dated by the inclusion of TikTokers dancing in front of Marcel’s house. Although this might seem like an encapsulation of the era, it simply comes off as gimmicky. For a film intending to inspire emotional connection, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On feels overwhelmingly sterile and uninspired, with very little substance behind its cutesy appearance and quirky premise. Expecting audiences to want to hear every thought that the shell has to offer with the same inquisitive nature of an annoying child, the filmmakers forget to include a decent storyline.
Still, the film isn’t all bad. Marcel’s larger-than-life personality, although irritating, does feel human, and it’s easy for audiences to forget that he really is just a one-inch tall shell with a massive eye and orange shoes. Additionally, Isabella Rossellini provides emotional depth and warmth as the voice of Marcel’s grandmother. Marcel also demonstrates the possibilities of animation, as Fleischer Camp’s incorporation of the shell into what feels like a real documentary forces audiences to remind themselves that creatures like Marcel are, in fact, totally fictional.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a bold effort, yet one that tries too hard to grasp at your heartstrings, resulting in an overly smug and sentimental shambles. Fleischer Camp fails to create a film that truly feels authentic. Instead, he should’ve stuck to making YouTube shorts of the insufferable little shell.
