Memoir of a Snail
After a life of hardship, loneliness and betrayal, Grace Pudel (voice of Sarah Snook) finds friendship with elderly eccentric Pinky (voice of Jacki Weaver), who gives her the inspiration to clear her life of unnecessary things. Grace tells her long, sad, but ultimately happy tale to Sylvia, her favorite of the garden snails she claims kinship to in "Memoir of a Snail."
Laura's Review: B+
A true stop animation tale using no CGI and composed of 7,000 objects and 135,000 stills, "Memoir of a Snail" is the seventh of writer/director Adam Elliot's ("Harvey Krumpet," "Max and Mary") Trilogy of Trilogies (three shorts of about 10 minutes, three of about 20 and three features, of which this is the second). It wows us from its opening credit pan over a vast heap of stuff including snail poison(!), a bathtub marked 'Melbourne Film Festival Fund' and an overflowing ashtray advising 'sound firm.'
Using a palette of beige and black with splashes of red, Eliot illustrates Grace's memories as she relates a happy childhood with her twin, Gilbert (voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee), a firebug who always smells of matches, and their father Percy (voice of Dominique Pinon), a former stop motion animator and mouth juggler, now an alcoholic paraplegic who nonetheless delights them by starting hairdo competitions and allowing them to balance black jelly beans on his head. Percy met their American mother while she was on vacation in France, but in the first of Gracie's many sorrows, Annie died in childbirth. She takes pleasure in reading and in helping people, like James (voice of Eric Bana), a former magistrate caught masturbating in court, now a homeless alcoholic and the first of many perverse characters we'll meet along the way. But nothing gives Gracie more pleasure than snails which she keeps in jars, collects as trinkets and even resembles, the woolen cap Percy made her adorned with two stalks ending in ping pong eyeballs.
But when Percy dies, the twins are separated by child services, Gracie getting a home in Canberra with swinging accountants Ian and Narelle, who largely leave her to her own devices, while Gilbert is shipped off to a Perth apple farm run by abusive religious fanatics. Filling her room with all things snail, Gracie takes comfort in her books and it is at the library where she meets Pinky, the old woman mistakenly returning books into a garbage bin. Percy is an amazing creation hilariously voiced by Weaver, a former orphan named for the loss of her pinky finger while dancing under a fan on a Barcelona bar who's had sex with John Denver in a helicopter, played ping pong with Fidel Castro and wore pasties on the job at Schnitz and Tits. But while Gracie's made a fast friend, she continues to pine for Gilbert, who writes her optimistic letters that belie his tortured existence slapping labels on apples under the hoary eye of Ruth (voice of Magda Szubanski) who finally completely loses her cool when she catches him snogging her youngest, Ben, giving them both shock treatments, then locking Gilbert within their Church he's set ablaze.
Things look up briefly for Gracie when microwave repairman Ken (Tony Armstrong) moves in across the street, Gracie having taken over Ian and Narelle's home after they moved to a nudist colony, but eventually she'll figure out he's been fattening her up to indulge a sexual fetish and she kicks him out. Then Pinky tells her 'For the first time I feel older than I look and I look like a testicle,' then quotes Kierkegaard 'Life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards,' leaving Gracie with words of wisdom and her last, 'The potatoes!'
Rest assured, that after much misery, Eliot wraps with a happy ending with characters from the past reappearing and Gracie following in dear old dad's creative footsteps. Sarah Snook gives Gracie just the right air of melancholy, her voice a calm guide through a riotous, often tortured tale (listen for the voice of Nick Cave as a postman as well). Everything about the production is sublime, Elliot the best in the biz outside of Aardman, his Australian humor quirkier (and more twisted) than their delightful British blend. "Memoir of a Snail" is a true original.
Robin's Review: B+
Twins Grace and Gilbert Pudel (Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee) were devoted to each other from the very first. But, when dad (Dominique Pinon), their last parent, dies, the two are separated to live in different homes. He promised to come back for her, but the years pass and Grace now hoards snails, trashy romance novels and guinea pigs in “Memoir of a Snail.”
Right from the beginning, under the credits, we are shown a world of extreme detail and imagination as the camera pans across a cluttered room. Then the stop-motion world of creator-writer-director Adam Elliot unfolds in the happy/sad (mostly sad) life of Grace Pudel.
This treatise on the plight of orphans in our world shows the importance of family, hope and never giving up. While Grace is reticent and shy and, as a child, bullied, Gilbert, is the opposite. When Grace is in danger, her brother will spring to her defense, no matter the odds. Then, their alcoholic, but lovable, dad dies and the twins are torn apart and sent to very different foster homes.
Little Grace ends up with a pair do swingers and is left on her own. Gilbert is sent to a family of religious fanatics who try to force their faith down his throat. He gives them lip service and nothing more. He also has never forgotten his vow to reunite with his long-lost sister.
While the story is charming and you root for Grace and Gilbert throughout, the set design and production are also stars in this visually rich, expertly shot animation. Nick Park, of “Wallace & Gromit” fame, has always been the gold standard of stop-motion anime, but Adam Elliot, with his latest, is reaching that pantheon.
It is hard to say if “Memoir of a Snail” is a good time. After all, it deals with loss, separation and loneliness. But, it also deals with, on a greater measure, hope, devotion and determination. It also has a cute snail named “Sylvia” – it is emblazoned on her shell – and a very good heart.
IFC Films releases "Memoir of a Snail" in select theaters on 10/25/24, expanding in subsequent weeks.
