Review
DULCIE PEARCE
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On review: explore the joy of family, knowledge and discover the wonders of love
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
(PG) 89 mins
★★★★★
“DO you ever feel angry?” the documentary maker asks little Marcel about his family disappearing.
“I feel angry that we didn’t have a better goodbye,” he simply replies.
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This is exactly the sort of profound, thoughtful and poetic statements a one-eyed little shell called Marcel says throughout this gem of a film.
I accept that if you had told me I’d be moved to tears by the musings of a one-inch talking shell, I would have been concerned.
And yet, I was. Because sometimes the best things do come in small packages.
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Dances on lawn
Crafted as a mockumentary, this imaginative stop-motion film from director Dean Fleischer Camp focuses on Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate), a tiny shell who lives in a suburban human house with his grandma, Connie (Isabella Rossellini).
The residents of the house have gone and an Airbnb guest, documentary maker Dean, finds Marcel and Connie and starts to make a film about their peculiar little life.
Soon, as is the way of the modern world, Marcel becomes an internet sensation with fans travelling far and wide to perform TikTok dances on his lawn.
But the shell’s new-found popularity does not fill the huge hole in his life left by the disappearance of most of his family members.
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It’s a well-known fact, according to Marcel, that it takes 20 shells to make a community. But there’s only two of them.
And while he’s both full of purpose and poignancy on the journey to find his family, there’s also a tremendous amount of humour, with many scenes being laugh-out-loud funny.
The mockumentary style also means there are many talking-head — or shell — interviews that allow for vulnerability and private confessions.
And Marcel’s relationship with his elderly grandmother is touching and relatable.
That’s the remarkable thing about this unusual film — there’s a magical little shell with one eye, and feet, that articulates the power of love and heartbreak we all feel in the most conscious, innocent way.
But more than anything, this is a film about joy.
The joy of family, the joy of knowledge and the joy of discovering all the wonders of love and life.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
(12A), 124 mins
★★☆☆☆
SEVERAL years on from saving the world with The Avengers, Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, is enjoying inaction and the spoils of his fame.
Posing for selfies and signing copies of his autobiography Look Out For The Little Guy are the new norm for the superhero, played by Paul Rudd.
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But his world is turned upside down when daughter Cassie’s attempt to map the Quantum Realm goes wrong and sucks in her dad and mum Hope van Dyne, aka The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly).
Inside this “worlds upon worlds” they face terrifying beasts and discover van Dyne’s connection to super-foe Kang The Conqueror.
Spectacularly played by Jonathan Majors, this villain has a big part to play in Marvel’s future films.
Yet in the set-up for these seismic sequels, Ant-Man has fallen by the wayside, with the film simply serving as family friendly filler.
Kang remains more myth than menace and, save for a few dorky gags and sweet father-daughter moments, it’s an easily missable movie.
If Marvel Cinematic Universe’s future was being carried on Ant-Man’s shoulders, he would surely have been crushed.
- Josh Saunders
The Son
(15) 123 mins
★★★☆☆
THE Father was always going to be a tough act to follow for The Son.
Sir Anthony Hopkins’ incredible performance won an Oscar in a film that powerfully explored the confusion of dementia.
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Hugh Jackman takes an impressive tilt at the standards set by Hopkins, but is undone by a faulty script.
The main problem is that director Florian Zeller jettisons the approach which made The Father so original – looking at dementia through the patient’s eyes.
Rather than telling this story of teen depression from the perspective of son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) Zeller opts for the viewpoint of the dad Peter (Jackman).
We also take a peek at the confused state of Nicholas’s mum Kate (Laura Dern) and stepmum Beth (Vanessa Kirby).
Very little of this helps to understand the mixed-up boy, who is largely a distant, voiceless figure.
Jackman and Dern do an excellent job of conveying parental anguish when the tough decisions have to be made.
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But, to work, the son needed to be properly developed.
- Grant Rollings
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