Review for Marcel The Shell With Shoes On

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a mixed-media film combining Live Action and Stop Motion Animation which is in the form of a documentary. Dean has come to an Airbnb and discovered Marcel (the titular shell with shoes on) who lives with his grandmother, also a shell and spend their day moving around the house in their wonderful contraptions which enable them to farm, move around and generally live.

However, Marcel longs to find his family who were taken (in a sock drawer) by one of the previous occupants. Posting interviews with Marcel online he soon becomes famous, featured on talk shows and soon is discovered by his favourite show ‘Sixty Minutes’ who want to do a profile piece on him and help him find his family.

This film is simply magical. There is no explanation as to why no one is scared or confused as to why a shell is just moving around, but that does not matter. Marcel is brought to life with the wonderful voicework of Jennifer Slate and the very simplistic animation. So simplistic that I was fascinated by how it was actually achieved, and I wish I knew (I will get to this in a moment).

Watching the interviews with him and his grandmother it is just simply adorable and heart warming and though there’s nothing offensive or adult-nature in the film I would recommend that this should not be shown to younger children as they may simply not get the subtlety of the story or (like me) want to cry their eyes out over certain parts.

The disk comes with a Trailer.

That’s it.

I am almost stunned into anger that a film like this could be released with so little. There are films (like Cocaine Bear) that have many extras, commentaries and the like and quite frankly that film did not deserve that. This film did.

At only Ninety minutes long even on DVD, space should not be an issue and so this is either that the studio were too lazy to add it, or simply didn’t care. This is such a shame as the film itself is wonderful and if it had just been given a few interviews, a commentary or even for them to have included the original Marcel short films it would have made it a ‘must have’ item. Instead, this is possibly a film that you will watch only once and then put away. The film deserved more than that.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a fantastic film from beginning to end and worthy of all the accolades that it has won, including the Best Animated Film Oscar Nomination. It is a shame that the set was given no more to show why this is one of the best films of the year, but if you want a story that will warm the cockles of your heart it would not be shell-fish of me to recommend this pearl of a film.