Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Marcel is an adorable one-inch-tall shell who ekes out a colorful existence with his grandmother Connie and their pet lint, Alan. Once part of a sprawling community of shells, they now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. But when a documentary filmmaker discovers them amongst the clutter of his Airbnb, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope at finding his long-lost family.

  • Released: 2022-05-04
  • Runtime: 90 minutes
  • Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy
  • Stars: Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer-Camp, Isabella Rossellini, Thomas Mann, Rosa Salazar, Lesley Stahl, Nathan Fielder, Andy Richter, Sarah Thyre, Jessi Klein, Peter Bonerz
  • Director: Dean Fleischer-Camp
 Comments
  • aweebitdaft - 7 April 2024
    Being A Creative Talent Doesn't Make You A Decent Writer!
    Just ask the guys at Tonko House; Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi both had burgeoning careers with Pixar Studios (blech!) as art directors, and when they created their first short after (cockily as well as humbly) venturing out on their own, they both realised very quickly that it isn't that artistic talent simply isn't enough to carry a film-even if it's only 18 minutes long!

    And this guy, who obviously possesses some talent in creating miniature models/worlds, thinks he can carry off a full-length film simply by gluing "eyes" onto various inanimate objects? Let's not forget the Femo™ clay shoes. AWWW! KAWAAAAIIII! Not.

    Forced charm! I HATE forced charm! I loathed this stupid, insipid, poorly executed, badly written film so much I tried everything to get rid of it. I despise this lame character with a passion, and can just see this typical millennial messing around with plastic googly eyes, sticking one on a seashell, then modelling the little orange sneakers and instantly thinking: "I must have validation for this genius! YouTube (NATCH) get ready for...bahbahbadah!!...MARCEL!

    The brain-dead who continually cruise that insidious site will find anything instantly endearing, as long as it possesses even a modicum of cutesy wootsiness. They'll hit the forward and like buttons over a single moment of dopamine!

    And that Jenny person's voice makes me want to break things-cannot abide her raspy, affected cutesy thing either.

    And of course, the creator has to put himself in the film--as the lead. Face palm. Dude, get over yourself already. I mean, 60 Minutes?? Talk about a charm-buster. Pieces of cereal, tampons, bits of fluff-time to dial down the Adderall intake, I think.

    BORING. DEVOID OF CHARM. IRRITATING. However, the vomit scene was fascinating, as was the appearance of the "influencers"--gawd. Really.

    For top-notch seamless stop-motion, superior artwork as well as good-to-great storytelling, and character development-apart from the Aardman/Nick Park creations, of course-check out Tumble Leaf for absolutely incredible, near-genius creativity, paired with terrific stories and engaging characters. Any productions touched by Dwarf Studios (Rilakkuma, ONI, Pokeman Concierge etc.) as well as the aforementioned Tonko House, are more than worthy of anybody's attention and awe. Marcel, sadly, is not.
  • crickwill - 22 December 2023
    Sweet Pain...
    Marcel is always slightly out of breath and sees beauty in everything. Talks in cliques like an annoying 12 year old girl and face it, he's a crashing bore. Coy and bordering on the obnoxious, Marcel and his movie has a few cute concepts bouncing around in it but the the majority of the time I just wanted to put my foot on him. Crack... What's more challenging to fathom is the ballyhoo and the number of internet viewers that are so desperate to grasp any sort of thing like this and worship at its alter. Marcel's alter ego is an equally dreary helmsman, also incapable of making his relationships work. This movie is just so well intentioned and so wanting to please that you feel like you need to make a donation towards it. Meanwhile the rest of the world burns....
  • powellian6 - 26 June 2023
    Marcel The Shell with Creative filming
    This was a film I've been meaning to get to for awhile. I know OF the YouTube skit of Marcel but I wasn't too familiar going into this movie. I had no idea what to expect and I got one of the most creative animation films I've seen in a few years.

    Marcel is a cute/funny character that you just can't help but smile or laugh when he says something silly or tries to navigate the house. For those who don't know by the picture; Marcel is an animated shell that talks. He lives in a house that the residing family has rented out as an Air BNB!

    They really did make an intelligent and heartwarming story about this YouTube short that turned into a full fledged film! It's pretty impressive the film style of this movie but I don't think many people will enjoy this like I did! I definitely think as a film it's a great watch but if you are looking for something more serious or less kid friendly I would steer clear of this one.
  • IonicBreezeMachine - 16 December 2022
    Sweet, sincere and heartfelt, Marcel the Shell with Shoes expands to feature length while maintaining the simple charms of the shorts.
    After separating from his wife, Dean (Dean Fleisher Camp) moves into an AirBnB where he meets Marcel (Jenny Slate) an anthropomorphic shell with red shoes who lives in the AirBnB with his grandmother Nana Connie (Isabella Rossellini) living alongside the various occupants of the house. Dean makes a documentary about Marcel's every day life with Connie and the online shorts blow-up to massive levels which Marcel thinks could possibly be used to help reunite him with his long lost family.

    Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a feature length expansion on the series of online shorts made by Dean Fleisher Camp back in 2010 that featured an anthropomorphic shell doing various activities and making various comments that became quite popular upon being posted on Youtube. The film premiered at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival to critical acclaim and was subject to an intense bidding war eventually being won by A24. Released in the Summer of 2022 the movie became a minor sleeper doing reasonably well at the box office for an indie title and has received acclaim from critics and audiences alike with buzz that it will be a contender for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, and rightly so because this film is a heartwarming treat that everyone should see.

    With Jenny Slate and Dean Fleisher Camp reuniting from their work together on the original three online shorts, the movie manages to maintain the simplistic charms that won over people in the first place while also expanding upon the story and world created. Jenny Slate's Marcel is still as endearingly cute as he was in the shorts but there's also some quiet sadness to the character that was present in the original shorts but is expanded upon here. The relationship between Marcel and Dean or Marcel and his grandmother Nana Connie are filled with subtle but striking nuances that aim right for the heartstrings and throughout the film there's a strong core about the value of family and community with Marcel's attempts at finding them using his newfound fame often met with frustration such as his line "this isn't a community it's an audience" carrying some strong weight to it and it also leads to some funny moments where TikTokers find Marcel's house and start taking pictures in front of it instead of actually helping find Marcel's family as he asked in an online call to action. The movie also features some charming stop motion animation of Marcel and various other elements in the film provided by noted Stop-Motion producers the Chiodo Brothers and their work is no less impressive here than it has been in their prior projects.

    Marcel the Shell with Shoes On deserves every bit of the adulation it's been awarded and is a solid showcase of Dean Fleischer Camp's, some great animation from the Chiodos, and solid performances from Rossellini, Camp, and Slate. Highly recommended.
  • TheVictoriousV - 24 October 2022
    A cute film with beautifully solemn undertones
    Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is remarkably somber for a film so cute; it is a film about small adorable characters and animated inanimate objects spawned from the idea that (to quote the director) "if an object is neglected long enough, it develops a spirit of its own".

    Based on Jenny Slate's and Dean Fleischer Camp's beloved web series about a tiny shell with a big heart and even bigger shoes (the popularity of which is acknowledged by the characters/"interviewees" in this film), it's a stop-motion/live-action mockumentary that is sure to make you cry tears of sadness and even more certain to inspire tears of "MY GOD, THIS IS SO PURE AND PRECIOUS". Something to that effect.

    Some of you might worry that the film is merely cutesy (which is different than being genuinely cute). But the picture is actually rather interesting on a technical level.

    I'd love to see a featurette on just how much of the stop-motion animation is truly stop-motion, and how they made said animations interact so seamlessly with the live-action footage (which is filmed to make the world that surrounds Marcel seem a large and confusing one indeed). Another noteworthy behind-the-scenes detail -- that might have influenced the themes and tone of the film in some way -- is the fact that, whereas Fleischer-Camp and Slate were married when they created the original web series together, they worked on the movie as exes.

    Last but not least: like all great things, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On also contains an appearance by Nathan Fielder. Why are you still here?
  • bulgerpaul - 12 September 2022
    A Movie About Having Community
    You may walk into Marcel the Shell with Shoes On with an expectation it will be the viral youtube video phenomenon it was back in 2010, only bigger, and you'd be somewhat correct in that assumption, but not really. It really isn't that much bigger a version than what it was in the short clips they were on youtube, as Marcel has a montage of interactions with documentarian Dean Fleischer-Camp where Marcel shares his cute and often humorous thoughts and understandings about various things, in ways that are informal to traditional documentary film-making, as Marcel doesn't conceptualize what a documentary is, and expects a reciprocal relationship with the person filming his life, even getting into small arguments with Dean about why Dean hasn't thought to share very important details of his own life, and it's in these asides, as the humans going about their lives around Marcel, that its themes make themselves present. There's a point about 30 minutes into the movie in which Marcel gets into an argument with Dean after Marcel asks for some help relighting his candle after it accidentally gets blown out, and Dean futily attempts to explain to Marcel that that would defeat the purpose of the documentary, and Marcel has to show him how he would navigate that situation if Dean wasn't there, to which Marcel explains:

    "There's just a lot of times where I don't get what I need...you are here that's the truth of it right now." "...that defeats the whole point of this." "Hey Dean, have you ever thought that your life might be a little less lonely and a bit more integrated if you actually took the time to connect with somebody instead of just making videos about them?"

    A line that clearly cuts Dean deeply because in the very next frame, we see that Marcel's candle is lit. It's also the line that gets at the heart of Marcel's understanding of community and integration, as this is a movie in which humans live an atomized existence, where every human interaction takes place from behind cameras, where togetherness only exist in the form of romantic relationships that end, and are followed by total isolation until the next romantic relationship, and even the situation Marcel himself finds himself within, figuring out how to physically navigate the space that he's in entirely by himself with the challenges presented by his physical stature, separated from the community he lived with, is the direct result of a human relationship falling apart. And it's fitting this movie should take place in Los Angeles, the biggest city in the world purely in terms of land mass, which also happens to be the most atomized major city on earth, in which communal spaces are scant, public transportation is non existent, and everybody is expected to navigate their spaces individually.