MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (Adam Elliot 2024)

[Chris Knipp]

ADAM ELLIOT: MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (2024) SCREENSHOT

ADAM ELLIOT: MEMOIR OF A SNAIL (2024)

TRAILER

Downbeat top cast Aussie stop-motion tale with final uplift is one of the year's best animated films

With its beautiful stop-motion, lovely score, and all-star cast, the Australian Memoir of a Snail, the product of eight years of work from Adam Elliot from Madman Entertainment is a leading contender for this year's animated film Oscar. But its peculiar, downbeat plot means something more cheerful, like Chris Sanders' hand-painted look CGI film for Universal The Wild Robot , Kelsey Mann's photo realist CGI film for Disney Inside Out 2, Gintz Zilbalodis' handpainted look CGI film for UFO Flow — or Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham's Stop-motion Netflix film Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl — all may be more likely candidates. (See Gold Derby for more details of the contenders.)

However, the voice acting is flavorful and strong, and others may take the unhappy circumstances and emotional honesty as useful life lessons, as the numerous favorable reviews show; it's a Variety Critic's Pick.

Sarah Snook, who plays the key role of Shiv Roy in "Succession," is the narrator and main character Gracie Pudel, who at the outset is telling her life story to her favorite pet snail, Sylvia. Things began with hardship. She and her twin brother Gilbert (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee as a grownup) are born to a mother who dies in childbirth. Their father has been in an accident that has made him paraplegic, and he becomes an alcoholic and doesn't live very long. When he dies, the twins are sent to different foster homes - in separate states with a big desert between them.

Neither of them gets lucky with their foster parents, either. Gracie is in the care of negligent swingers, who can't be bothered with kids. She becomes a passionate reader and a lonely collector of snails. Gilbert's "shell" is a family of maniac fundamentalist Christians who look down on him and work him hard for derisory wages. The twins go along this way for years, both deeply longing to be reunited and living for the letters they exchange, which we hear.

Brian Tallerico of Ebert.com calls this one of the most thematically rich films of the year and notes that it's sophisticated enough to drop references to Sylvia Plath, Lord of the Flies, and Cahiers du Cinema. He sees possible inspiration for the film's animated world in that of the Jeunet brothers, and the cast does include Dominique Pinon, of the Jeunet's Delicatessen. Tellerico notes also that there is an exceptional amount of nudity. - this ain't for kiddies and probably not for depressed adults either - but forgets to mention that the people in this film are all of the stubby, animated-film type, so there is nothing very sexy about them. Any beauty here is that of evoked love and devotion, beauty of feeling. Perhaps the hardship is necessary for those qualities to shine forth the more movingly. And there is (spoiler alert) a sweet happy ending.

Peter Debruge in his Variety review compares both the dark and "surprisingly moving" storytelling and the "nearly monochromatic" palette to similar qualities in Edward Gorey. Actually the color of the images is very pleasing. The way characters usually face the camera head-on "as if posing for gloomy school photos" he compares to the style of Wes Anderson. The irreverent humor encompassing weird sexual kinks (a husband who turns out to be fattening his wife with milkshakes and microwave sausages because he's an adipophile (fat fetisher); a kinky judge who gets disbarred for masturbating in court, reminds him of John Waters.

All these links and possible influences don't meant that Adam Elliot's film isn't original. Though the stubby figures have similarities to plenty of other animations, unfortunately, the story is pretty unique, and that is most welcome in a world that, for all the freedom animation has to create its own environments, is often much of a sameness.

Just when things are seeming too much for Gracie, she finds a husband, Ken, whom she thinks perfedct. He operates a leaf blower but his hobby is kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with ornamental seals. Later, she encounters a gnarly crone of wonderful spirit with amazing life stories called Pinky (voiced by the great Jacki Weaver, Australian actor royalty, who cares for her, till later she sinks into dementia and is cared for by Gracie. As you can see, a lot of stuff happens in this little film, and we haven't told you the half of it.

The very pretty score is by Elena Kats-Chernin. Other notables in the voice cast list include Nick Cave and Eric Bana; and six members of the Adams family are heard from.

For animation fans who like to keep up on the best new films, this is a must-see. Elliot won an Oscar in 2003 for his animated short Harvie Krumpet. In 2009 his Mary and Max won the same top award at Annecy.

Memoir of a Snail, 93 mins., debuted at Annecy Jun. 10, 2024, winning the Crystal Prize for best feature, showing also at Melbourne, Telluride, BFI, São Paulo, and Mannheim-Heidelberg. Limited US release by IFC Oct. 25, 2024. Metacritic rating: 81%.