Memoir of a Snail, 2024.
Written and Directed by Adam Elliot.
Featuring the voice talents of Sarah Snook, Eric Bana, Jacki Weaver, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Dominique Pinon, Magda Szubanski, Paul Capsis, Tony Armstrong, Mason Litsos, Charlotte Belsey, Davey Thompson, Selena Brennan, Jub Clerc, Luke Elliot, Nick Cave, Bernie Clifford, David Williams, and Craig Ross.
SYNOPSIS:
A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel – a hoarder of snails, romance novels, and guinea-pigs.
From Academy Award-winning animator and writer/director Adam Elliot comes Memoir of a Snail, a 1970s-set richly detailed stop-motion feature that is somewhere between misery porn and uplifting. The film uses the trauma and pains its characters go through, specifically Grace Pudel (voice of Sarah Snook), to point out how grief is not always properly dealt with and that people sometimes retreat further inward, especially as more suffering is piled on. Nasty individuals craft cages, and then there are emotional cages that people create and push themselves inside, closing the door shut.
For Grace, this already stems from anxiety and a childhood of bullying, but as tragedy continues to unfold, it manifests into a hoarding obsession for anything to do with snails (living ones, porcelain ones, or any trinket resembling the creature) and guinea pigs. It’s a crushing, lonely existence, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Structured as a memoir (as in the title of the film), Grace even recounts her life story to a longtime companion snail named Sylvia, sitting in the garden following the death of the only one left she has resembling family, a nonbiological grandmother figure named Pinky (voiced by Jacki Weaver.)
Starting from childhood, Grace narrates across several montages, introducing family members ranging from a mother who died too soon (but also passed on a sentimental fascination with snails), a juggling father with artistic dreams who was tragically run over by an alcoholic drunk driver turning him into not only a paraplegic but also starting a cycle of alcohol abuse, and a tender, protective, animal-loving brother named Gilbert (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) that is her light in a world of darkness. Sometime later, their father died, and they were separated, shuffled off into wildly different orphanage homes; Grace went to a more relaxed family obsessed with self-help books, whereas Gilbert got sent to a farm run by hypocritical religious bigots.
This is unquestionably grim material, but Adam Elliot finds some equally dark humor in it, whether it be from Gilbert snapping the finger of bullies making fun of Grace’s “rabbit face,” a bookcase falling and murdering some guinea pigs while intimate, or the increasingly absurd yet liberating adventures of Pinky (it’s a life lived to the fullest, that’s for sure) and her two deceased husbands with morbidly hilarious gravestone inscriptions. There is also a thorough dedication to rounding out who these characters are, filling the screen with revealing details such as what books they are reading.
It’s not all quirks, trauma, and irreverent humor, though. There is also genuinely moving imagery, such as Grace and Gilbert expressing their love for one another (and fire) by aligning their arms so burn marks form a smiley face. Tucked away is also a powerful message conveying the positive impact helping someone when they are shamed and at their lowest can have.
Perhaps most of these eccentricities won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Adam Elliot’s previous feature and shorts, but even as a story about hard times breeding more challenging times (the lonely Grace eventually finds love, which ends disastrously humiliating) and what it takes to break free from such overwhelming negativity and suffocation (Grace’s foster parents aren’t exactly the best, either), not to mention as a tale love unwavering sibling love (Grace and Gilbert frequently write each other letters with the latter promising he will make his way across to the other end of Australia to reunite), Presented as an extended montage of life, there are the occasional moments that slightly drag, but that’s nitpicking.
Memoir of a Snail is an emotionally powerful look at life’s ups and downs. It is depressing, crude, poignant, and hopeful, beautifully realized through expressive voiceover performances and lovingly crafted stop-motion animation.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
