TOENAILS FROM A MAN
'Marcel The Shell With Shoes On' Is Proof You Can Be Friends With Your Ex
Most of us met Marcel the Shell (with shoes on) via YouTube over a decade ago. Now, Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp, who were a couple when they created the original character of Marcel and the series of video shorts about him, have reunited to bring Marcel the Shell to the big screen.
The success of “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” is testament to a lot of things: the power of a seemingly silly character to evoke emotion, the longevity of old internet classics, and the enduring creative chemistry between exes Slate and Fleischer-Camp.
“Marcel” may not be a film for the ages, but it’s undeniably a success, and a sweet family movie besides. Here’s what the reviews say.
Marcel’s Roots Go Deep
The gregarious, one-inch tall, one-eyed seashell sporting a childish voice and tiny tennis shoes was first introduced to us through YouTube shorts chronicling his daily routine and witty, innermost thoughts, tickling our funny bones and warming our hearts. Now co-creator/director Dean Fleischer Camp and co-creator/Marcel voice Jenny Slate broaden the miniature mollusk’s origins and world in a live-action/stop-motion-animated hybrid film, gifting us with a life-affirming, super charming and sweet-natured journey.
[AV Club]
When comedian Jenny Slate and her then-husband, director Dean Fleischer-Camp, first started making the short adventures of a minuscule shell as a creative pastime, the expectations were as low as their hero’s stature. […] The couple dropped these four-minute movies on YouTube and, several gajillion views later, Marcel became a viral sensation.
The Movie Enhances Marcel’s Cute Daily Routines With Plot
Marcel and Connie live a quiet life built around everyday habits and chores (gardening, cooking, transporting themselves around the house by hopping inside a tennis ball), sometimes being noticed by the various Airbnb guests that come their way, and sometimes ignored altogether. They sing songs, play games, and make a habit of spending Sunday nights watching 60 Minutes.
But then a filmmaker named Dean (played by the film’s own director, Dean Fleischer-Camp) moves in, and strikes a friendship with Marcel – one that he chronicles in short documentary-style clips, which are posted online to wild success. With Marcel now a bona fide social-media star, the little shell that could embarks on a mission to find the family members that he and Connie lost one night long ago, when the original human owners of their house split up, accidentally taking a bunch of other tiny, talking molluscs along with them.
Not unlike the shorts, the feature gets a lot of mileage out of brief glimpses into Marcel’s miniature life and the ingenious ways he survives and entertains himself. He nestles inside a tennis ball to get around the house. He keeps a piece of lint on a leash as a pet. He sleeps on a slice of bread. He steps in a sticky puddle of honey whenever he wants to walk on the wall or the window. (He may be a shell, but he’s not a snail.) He and grandma settle in once a week to watch 60 Minutes, especially any segment featuring Lesley Stahl. (“We just call it ‘the show.’ That’s how much we like it,” Marcel declares.)
[Vulture]
[Marcel] shows us how he uses a piece of curly pasta as a makeshift French horn, or eases his loneliness by adopting a pet, even though it’s really just a piece of lint tied to a string. All of these things constitute a kind of DIY manual for getting through bad days and good ones.
[Time]
Slate And Fleischer-Camp’s Creative Chemistry Still Blazes
Paying heightened fictional reference to their real-life marriage dissolution works to the film’s advantage, giving the tiny protagonist’s heartrending story larger depths.
[AV Club]
Most exes can’t be in the same room, but Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp made the best family film of the year.
It’s Not Wildly Exciting, But It’s Undeniably Charming
“Marcel” is sweet, it’s charming, it’s clever. It’s also about as long an 89 minutes as you’re likely to spend in a movie theater this summer. Shoes Marcel has. Narrative drive his namesake film does not. Here, in fact, is the strangest thing about this strange little film: that it manages to combine tedium and enchantment both.
Their adventures, between a living room and a garden, seem slight because thin material is stretched to feature length. But it’s the quiet and contemplative moments — where not much really happens but the possibilities seem endless — that stick with you.
The Self-Reflexive Aspects Distract From The Movie’s Real Heart
Brands are part of Marcel-land, which is a letdown, as is the part of the story which turns on that quintessentially American chronicle of identity, being and becoming: celebrity. Dean’s portrait racks up views, makes Marcel famous and stirs up trouble; enter Lesley Stahl and gawkers wielding selfie sticks. Some of this is funny, if overly familiar, but the self-reflexiveness of the entire enterprise only breaks the spell that Slate and Camp work hard to maintain.
[NY Times]
The metacommentary about celebrity, from its fickle nature to its unforeseen downsides, is designed to be tame and a means to an end, which doesn’t make it feel like any less of a distraction from what “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” is really about. […] All you really need is Slate’s voice, which has a way of lacing Marcel’s naivete with the gentlest irony to keep things from getting cloying to the point of intolerance.
The Movie Manages To Achieve Surprising Depth
Slate and Fleischer-Camp might lure us in with the familiar hook of a cuddly mollusk who muses about lint balls and coos about a "sad type of idiot." But beyond that familiarity, they delve into troubling waters of what growing up and growing old brings on. Troubles we can't predict. Losses we can't control. Grief we can't escape, even if you happen to be a plucky shell with shoes on.
[Mashable]
This is where the emotional resonance of this quietly extraordinary movie lies. In fact, it has a keen sense of demonstrating why the comfort of others — of being part of something larger than yourself — isn’t a luxury but a necessity. You will want to have tissues nearby for its final third, for both the reasons you’d think and for several unexpected wallops that sneak up on you.
[Marcel] offers a poignant lesson for anyone navigating obstacles that seem insurmountable: Approaching a challenge with grace can be more important than conceiving of a solution. The world was not built for the likes of Marcel, but he can help guide us through it.
TL;DR
In the end, “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” is more than the sum of its quirks.
[Mashable]
”Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” is the most unassuming and delicate of movies, but don’t be shocked if it leaves you in ruins.
[Vulture]