MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON

It is often said that the smallest creatures can achieves great things. Marcel The Shell and the movie that bears his name prove that.

Subtle movies that thrive on small moments can go one of two ways. Either they bore you to bits or they slowly draw you into a wonderfully imagined universe filled with characters you wouldn't mind spending more time with than the picture allows. Marcel The Shell With Shoes On falls in the second category.

The movie tells the story of an unassuming shell who lives in an Airbnb with his grandma and longs to be reunited with his family, who went abruptly missing two years ago. Don't expect a familiar personal quest though: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On spends more time on the daily routines of the titular character than it does on his search for a family.

Therein lies the movie's strength: in its ability to find meaning not in the big things but in the small ones. And in its beautiful stop-motion animation of course, which puts Marcel and his gran into a real live-action environment to hammer home the humanity of the tale even more.

It is often said that the smallest creatures can achieves great things. Marcel and the movie that bears his name prove that.

release: 2022

director: Dean Fleischer Camp

starring: Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer Camp, Rosa Salazar, Isabella Rossellini