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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On Movie Review

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a 2022 live-action/animated mockumentary film directed by Dean Fleischer Camp and starring Jenny Slate. It is a slight and meandering, but endearing flick.

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“It’s like a movie, but nobody has any lines

and nobody even knows what it is while they’re making it“

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It follows an anthropomorphic shell who is on a quest to find his family while he is being filmed and receiving worldwide fame. This is one of those flicks that are very thinly plotted and episodic in nature, which isn’t my cup of tea, but when your movie is this cute and this lighthearted, you end up liking it regardless.

Marcel is an instantly classic animated character. He is not only adorable, but also pleasingly whimsical and his fascination with all living things and objects will undoubtedly put a smile to everybody’s faces, even the most cynical among us. His story is very moving and his lines of dialogue are both amusing and heartwarming, a testament to Jenny Slate’s enormous voice acting talents.

Other characters are much less memorable, but the relationships that he forges with them are very sweet. Technically speaking, this is a live-action movie, but the animated segments are present throughout, especially when focusing on the protagonist, so it is a hybrid feature that is for once done right. It looks beautiful, it’s very well edited and it is endearing in the creature design that is instantly iconic.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is at its best when focusing on dialogues and especially monologues delivered by our cute protagonist. The movie has a lot to say about the importance of family and community while importantly taking a shot at celebrity culture and Internet sensations. There is a clear demarcation drawn here between real supporters and online fans, which was wonderful to witness.

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My issue here is that the movie felt too long, which was highly problematic given its very short runtime. That is because it is so leisurely paced, uneventful in narrative and episodic in nature that it requires a lot of patience to go through it properly. I wished for a stronger main arc overall as its short movie roots are way too evident from the very first moment.