Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

The way director Dean Fleischer Camp mixes stop-motion animation and live action filmmaking is matched by the storytelling’s fusion -- everything gels delightfully.

A joyous juxtaposition of quotidian, vérité-style dialogue and fancifully inventive visuals that hits a tragicomic sweet spot.

No emotion is forced, but, as we move towards a touching denouement, even Teflon psyches will find themselves opening up to the oddest of outsiders.

The film is deftly done, unexpectedly moving and with a dash of Tony-Hart-and-Morph energy balanced by Zen ruminations on the interconnectedness of all things.

The animation, by the New York-based Chiodo brothers, is both witty in its make-do-and-mend aesthetic (the sentient Shreddies are a hoot) and sometimes dazzlingly intuitive. You don’t question the truth of it for a moment...

How Marcel copes with this shell-cracking stress forms a beautiful final act that’s tender but never twee thanks to adept comic timing and playful use of scale.

Beautiful, soothing, and deeply profound, its compelling themes are matched only by its astonishing filmmaking and emotional honesty.

It would be easy for a movie like this to be cute to the point of being obnoxious, but there’s a real sincerity to its kindness that I would put on par with the Paddington flicks.

Marcel makes me want to hope again even in the face of everything that wants to bring me down and that's a feeling I want to chase.

A therapeutic, absurdist mockumentary on life.