Marcel the Shell with Shoes On 2022
I knew very little about this movie, but it got great reviews when it had a limited theatrical release. Even the wider release never made it to my closest theater, so I had to wait and rent it, which was at least in 4k (and free!). It is a cute and kind of sad movie about a small anthropomorphic shell and his grandmother, separated from their family of shells and living in the same house that their family of humans moved out of. It is neat seeing how this tiny shell (with shoes on and a single googly eye) has adapted to life in a house and we see the relationship with the new renter as well as the shell’s grandmother, voiced perfectly by Isabella Rossellini. It isn’t 100% cohesive and one part seems a little manufactured. Generally it is just interesting getting to know this little boy who looks like a shell and explore this mystery of who he is and where his family went. While maybe not everything works and it is sometimes a little too cute or repetitive for its own good, it is still a nice movie to watch, proving you don’t have to have a billion dollar budget to make an entertaining movie.
Written: 07 Nov 2022