A ‘unforgettable’ mockumentary film that floored viewers with its emotional storyline is now streaming for free.
In 2010, the anthropomorphic seashell Marcel was introduced to viewers, with three 4-minute-long short films about the character released over the next four years.
Voiced by Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation star Jenny Slate, Marcel quickly gained a loyal legion of fans.
Then, in 2021, a film feature, which was directed, edited and produced by Dean Fleischer Camp, hit screens. It was co-written with Slate – his partner at the time.
Combining live action and stop motion animation, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On was both a stand-alone sequel and prequel to the short film series’.
The 90-minute release follows Marcel, who is living with his grandmother Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini) and goes viral after a video is uploaded showing his daily life and details his hopes to reunite with his long-lost family.
The story kicks off after documentary filmmaker Dean moves into an Airbnb and stumbles across the shell family and starts to film their daily activities, which he then uploads to YouTube – with the pair becoming a cultural phenomenon.
Despite his newfound fame, Marcel is battling the grief of being separated from his family – who were accidentally taken from the house from its previous owners while hiding in a sock drawer.
Determined to help Marcel find his loved ones, Dean helps start a public campaign asking people for assistance.
While the premise may seem quite bizarre – many who tuned in were caught off guard and left in tears by the ‘poignant’ story.
Holding an impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, the review site sums up its critic and audience reviews by sharing: ‘Poignant, profound, and utterly heartwarming, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is animated entertainment with real heart.’
‘It’s clever, it’s consistently funny and dances right on the edge of cutesy without falling in,’ Decider wrote in its review.
‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On delivers a funny and extraordinarily profound story that, though populated by weird little one-eyed seashells in sneakers, is as human as anything you’re likely to encounter. A gorgeous, life-affirming film,’ The Irish Sunday Independent shared.
‘The stop-motion animation about a talking shell sounds twee, but there’s something genuinely charming about its unpredictability,’ iNews added.
Meanwhile countless viewers detailed being left crying unexpectedly.
‘My wife and I threw this on for our son thinking it was a little cartoon or something. We ended up watching it with him, laughing and balling our eyes out. Absolutely amazing little movie!’ Steve posted.
‘Profound, moving, creative and unforgettable from start to finish,’ Thomas shared.
‘An entirely preposterous concept, which somehow becomes one of the sweetest and most touching movies I have ever seen,’ Charvine added.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On – which took seven years to make – was also nominated for the Academy Award for best animated feature.
Speaking to Script Mag around the time of the film’s release, Fleischer-Camp was asked about whether some of the moving plot lines were inspired by his own life.
‘We wanted to tell a very personal film, and we all, Nick ‘Paley, the co-editor], Jenny [Slate], Liz [Holm], and our other producers as well, really put pieces of ourselves into the film, especially in the emotional moments,’ he said.
‘I think it’s a beautiful collage of obstacles and heartbreaks in our lives. Nick and I [once] went to go see this Czech screenwriter Jiří Menzel and he said something that always stuck with me. It was like, “Films tell the future. So be careful what you make films about”. And I was like, “Whoa”.’
‘Because I think that we pitched this project so many years ago and during the making from short film to feature film, I had got divorced and lost both my grandparents, which is some of the main moments in the Marcel movie. But those ideas were in the pitch long before they actually happened, and that’s not to say it’s a bad thing that they happened, but like those things, are just like life. Life happens and you grow around it.’
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is streaming on BBC iPlayer.
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