Among the Youtube sensations of the early 2010s, the Marcel the Shell with Shoes On shorts might hold up the best. The three shorts by Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate focus on the titular character, voiced by Slate. Fleischer-Camp interviews Marcel, a 1-inch tall shell with shoes and a single eye. The interviews lead to a series of non-sequiturs and interview questions that showcase Slate’s comedic style and timing. They’re cute and charming in a kind of timeless way. However, they do not immediately scream “feature-length film.” The three shorts total 11 minutes and 24 seconds in length and don’t create the sense that Marcel is part of a wider world. It was easy to believe that a Marcel the Shell feature length film would become just the latest in a long line of cynical cash grab movies made out of Youtube personalities, coasting on name recognition alone.
Instead, Marcel’s feature expands on the shorts’ central concept: struggling documentarian Dean (Dean Fleischer-Camp) moves into a new house, currently occupied by Marcel (Jenny Slate) and his grandmother ConnieIsabella Rosselini). Marcel and Connie are the last remnants of a much larger community of shells that was torn apart when the house’s previous residents moved out. Dean begins putting up short documentaries about Marcel; once they go viral, Marcel uses the platform in an attempt to find his family.
The expansion of Marcel’s world beyond himself and Dean pays dividends. Several sequences see the pair exploring their hometown, driving home what a monumental task Marcel has undertaken. He clearly cannot do this alone, even if he wants to; it provides much of the dramatic thrust, as does an obsession with 60 Minutes.
The introduction of Connie gives the screenplay a lot more room to breathe. As an “interviewer,” Fleischer-Camp is fine, but it would be hard for an audience to sustain that kind of interest over 90 minutes. Connie proves a much more effective counterweight to Marcel’s antics. Rosselini’s performance is that of someone who’s been around the block a few times, but never let her trauma weigh her down. Connie proves to be even more of a go-getter than Marcel at times. No stranger to internet shorts herself, Rosselini refuses to phone in the role.
Fleischer-Camp and Slate, both reprising their roles as Dean and Marcel, are too smart and too good at their jobs to simply coast on name recognition. They use the opportunity to unmoor the character from early 2010s Youtube nostalgia and place him firmly in the present. Instead of being vague about when the story is set, the presence of Tiktokers and various shots of the Youtube interface firmly place the events in our present day..
That decision turns the film’s commentary on modern internet culture from the last pleas of a bygone age to a gentle reminder of what the internet could be if we were all better to one another. The film doesn’t treat itself as “for kids.” This is definitely the rare A24 release that kids can see, but it doesn’t sugar coat any of its topics. It honestly would be a good introduction to the *whys* of internet etiquette and safety; the world is just a better place when we don’t treat each other like trash and try to take advantage of each other.
The stop-motion animation gets a huge upgrade here as well, right down to how the shells move. Marcel glides across surfaces in the original shorts, but he stomps across surfaces in the film. The lighting bounces off Marcel and Connie, illuminating them and giving them shadows in a way that a low-budget short film never could. They have a physicality that Marcel never did in the original shorts.
Thankfully, the film does not overstay its welcome. It doesn’t get overly preachy or sentimental. An acapella cover of an Eagles song borders on treacly, but it’s so well-deployed that it doesn’t feel out of place. The film even feels fast-paced at times. Marcel The Shell With Shoes On ultimately succeeds because of its earnestness. There’s no snark or winking nods to the absurdity of talking shells with eyes and shoes. It asks its audience to suspend their disbelief, both in the film’s universe and the world after they leave the theater. If nothing else, the film gives one hope that we can collectively fulfill the promise of the internet; it’s a story of genuine human connection, told through a little shell with shoes on.
