What’s worse than the armor other people put on us in life? The armor we put on ourselves. This idea of the intangible things we carry around on our backs — like insecurity, depression, grief and trauma — is at the core of Adam Elliot’s poignant stop-motion saga, “Memoir of a Snail,” which is unlike any other animated film you’ll see this year. It’s a beautiful film, but it’s also an emotionally intelligent film, shifting and flowing between comedy and tragedy, reminding us that life can only be lived forward.
Sarah Snook, of “Succession” fame, lends her delicate voice to Grace, who tells her life story to her pet snail, Sylvia, after the death of the last person on Earth she cared about, her best friend Pinky (a wonderful Jacki Weaver). It’s a story of remarkable hardship. The mother died giving birth. The father was a paraplegic and didn’t live long enough to raise Grace or her twin brother Gilbert (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee as an adult). The twins were separated after the father passed away, with Grace sent to a swingers’ couple (yes, this is a surprisingly adult stop-motion film, likely to set a new record for nudity in that format) and Gilbert to a family of religious fundamentalists on the other side of the country. Much of “Memoir of a Snail” consists of letters sent back and forth between Grace and Gilbert, in which they promise to return to each other as soon as they can escape the shells life has placed upon them.
Just because it’s stop-motion doesn’t mean “Memoir of a Snail” can’t be one of the most thematically dense films of the year. Elliot has created an outlandish world, one that seems inspired by the work of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet on films like “Delicatessen” and “Amelie,” an inspiration made all the more important by the inclusion of JPJ regular Dominique Pinon in the voice cast. There’s an exaggerated, fantastical aesthetic to some sequences, but it’s all grounded enough in reality to allow its emotions to register. What I’m saying is, don’t expect talking snails. This is the story of an ordinary life in many ways, made extraordinary by the beauty with which it’s told. And while we’re on the subject of this film’s technical acumen, a quick aside to highlight one of the best scores of the year by far, by Elena Kats-Chernin, so charming it almost becomes a character in the film. It is essential to the spell that this film casts.
That spell is full of ideas, emotions and references. It’s not every day that you see a stop-motion animated film with nods to Sylvia Plath. Lord of the Fliesand Film NotebooksBut the creator of the equally wonderful “Mary & Max” is also a phenomenal writer, something that’s often underappreciated in the visual form of animation. This is a carefully calibrated character arc: Just when the bleakness of Grace’s story seems like it’s going to overwhelm you, Elliot pivots to revel in the unpredictable grace of life, reminding us that snails can’t turn back, and neither can we. That’s the point. Just when we think life is too much, a warm gesture from a stranger or a memory from a loved one or even a good book or movie can change our perspective.
“Memoir of a Snail” is one of those tender movies where every frame and every line seems so carefully thought out, and yet somehow not overwritten at the same time. Some might disagree and wish the movie could allow someone to get emotional and catch their breath, but that’s not how a story like this works. By charting Grace’s entire life up to this point, Elliot is able to explore so many different ideas, from the childhood insecurity inflicted on Grace by bullies to the terribly prejudiced Gilbert family to the way Pinky rejects all the things that try to hold her back. Pinky’s joie de vivre is essential to the success of “Memoir of a Snail,” a reminder of both Grace’s inherent goodness and how we should live every moment on this earth to the fullest.
Elliot’s script is so packed with ideas that people will be able to apply different aspects of it to their own lives, but it’s actually a line about Grace’s future husband that I’ll remember for a long time. His hobby is fixing broken pottery, but not in a way that hides that it was broken in the first place. “All things can be mended, and our cracks can be celebrated.” When we shed the shells we’ve put on in life, we don’t do it so easily. We can still see the cracks. But we can also choose to celebrate them.
This review was submitted by Fantastic Fest. It opens on October 25th.He.