Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is entertaining, moving, and perhaps slightly over the heads of its target audience.
The stop-motion animated film introduces us to Marcel (voice of Jenny Slate), a one-inch tall shell with a googly eye who lives with his grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini) in an Airbnb being rented by an amateur documentarian named Dean (Dean Fleischer-Camp, who directed and co-wrote with Slate and Nick Paley), who has made the shells the subject of his next project. The movie is based on a viral short and several YouTube sequels released during the 2010s, meaning that this project was in incubation for some time.
That wait paid off: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is delightful. Marcelโs explanations of how he and his grandmother get around the house (via tennis balls...