I was astonished to learn, via IMDB's Trivia page, that the filmmakers had spent seven years writing, storyboarding, planning, and filming this movie. It does not look like much organization or forethought went into making this movie. The screenplay and plot seem largely improvisational, some half-baked concepts cobbled together during the first months of the COVID lockdown.
Here are some of the many things that fell flat for me:
Director Dean Fleischer-Camp's role as a newly divorced man trying to figure out single life? That seemed like a backstory that was simply slapped on in order to justify the character hanging out in an AirBnB for an extended period. The fact that Dean is the movie's actual director and that he was actually married to Jenny Slate, the voice and co-creator of Marcel the Shell, and that they underwent an actual divorce during the making of this film: well, that just seemed improbable! The movie's treatment of divorce seemed tacked on, superficial, and extraneous. The backstory involving Thomas Mann and Rosa Salazar as two homeowners who broke up in a flashback likewise seemed insubstantial--more about putting the machinations of the plot in place rather than providing an actual exploration of the contours of a breakup.
Director Dean's unwillingness to open up in front of Marcel or the cameras? A hint of depth that never goes anywhere, even when the 60 Minutes interview gives them a perfect opportunity to dive into this character arc.
Marcel's longing for community? Well, that was a headscratcher. In theory, I very much liked this theme, but when the community was finally reunited at the end, the artistic choices about how to present this reunion made me feel like the whole theme was pretty minor. Most of Marcel's family and friends barely seem to have even noticed that he was gone, including his own father and (to a lesser extent) his mother. The film barely gives us a glimpse of what it means to be back in this community, and what it shows us is surprisingly disturbing. Watching the whole crew devour a loaf of bread conjured up images of vermin and infestation for me; the happy ending gave me a feeling of revulsion. The fact that the reunited community included things like peanut shells and Chex cereal pieces was also baffling. If all these inanimate things were just as capable of becoming sentient as the seashells, then what are the odds that Marcel would be all alone in this house? I know I shouldn't be thinking too hard about the parameters of this world's scientific reality, but that final reunion was not the happy ending I would have hoped for.
Marcel's disappointment over his online fans is also surprisingly paper thin and stereotypical. Undoubtedly, most fans would just use Marcel's virality as an excuse to record TikToks of them dancing in his lawn, as is depicted in this film. But an audience of millions of people is likely to include a handful of amateur online investigators like myself who would thrill at the possibility of solving Marcel's mystery. In fact, I'm sure I would have been able to solve the mystery in about fifteen minutes, and I question why Dean was unable. Property deeds are available to the public. As is facial recognition software. The mystery at the heart of this film makes no sense.
It wasn't all worthless, though. Marcel's relationship with his nana Connie (Isabella Rossellini giving a fabulous voice performance) is the only plotline/theme explored in the film that actually has depth, meaning, and believability. There are likewise a number of good laughs throughout the film, and the miniature production design is clever, whimsical, and memorable. At one point Marcel serves a single Pepperidge Farm goldfish that looks to be the size of a turkey on a silver platter that is in fact a dime. Touches like that are magical, and the props alone make the movie worth seeing.
Perhaps the themes about divorce, intimacy, and community mean more to the filmmakers than they do to the audience. I wish I'd been able to get something out of the film's exploration of these themes, but they seemed to me to have been hastily cobbled together. I recommend this movie, but it might have been better if it were only 40 minutes long.
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