Memoir of a Snail

Memoir of a Snail is an unusual stop-motion animated feature, telling a rather devastating story about loss and guilt. What appears on the surface to be a whimsical tale soon reveals itself to be anything but, as the story of two siblings and their unfortunate lives unfolds in a series of events straight out of Dickens. The director and writer, Adam Elliot, based the film on events from his own life, and there is a certain reality when watching the film. Bolstered by a great cast of voices — Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Eric Bana and Magda Szubanski — the film surprisingly works best when the visuals are allowed to tell the story.

Courtesy IFC Films

Using a visual style that those familiar with the work of Henry Selick will recognize, though in the opinion of this writer, Selick’s work achieves a greater emotional depth. This is perhaps because of the unrelenting grimness of the story here, which needed not so much humor as room to breathe, which it seldom gets. Yet, this is one of the years better animated efforts. While it relies a bit too much on mis-directions and twists of plot, there is a continuity of emotion here which makes the proceedings worth seeing.

Dickens is indeed, not an improper comparison, both in terms of style but also the events and character progression. Telling a story of two lifetimes, filled with tragedy and triumph-very hard earned-this is a work that could test your patience. If you stick with it, there are rewards to be had. Despite the surface whimsy, what we have is much darker, filled with shades of grey. Death is a recurring theme, as is loss, and the characters are sent from one painful event to another with every respite seemingly only a brief tease to remind them of the horrors they seem destined to endure.

Courtesy IFC Films

Compared to other animated fare from this year, such as Inside Out 2 or The Wild Robot, this is a lesser film, but that is not to imply it is bad. Each film offers something unique, with one being a story of growing up, another being a story of finding purpose and this being about overcoming all obstacles in your way. It also has perhaps one or two more ambitions than it finds itself capable of ably and fully exploring. Sometimes, less is more, but this reviewer does admire the ambition.

This is a film of great emotional intelligence, beautifully rendered and with one of the year’s best scores. Indeed, that score almost seems like a character in and of itself, going on a journey along with Grace and Gilbert, the twins at the center of the story. The early scenes which delineate the bonds between the twins and the ways their differences enhanced one another, are accompanied by almost perfect cues. It is, not surprisingly, in these scenes showing the earliest parts of their lives, that the most adult themes and pains are revealed.

Courtesy IFC Films

One could almost imagine this as a Judy Blume book that was abandoned, not because it didn’t work but because so much of it feels familiar. Part of this is because the film is about finding ourselves in patterns we struggle to escape but also because it deals with universal truths, though not in ways that, beyond the surface, are all that unique. Did this film need to get made? The writer and director certainly had to get this out of his system, to deal with the traumas of his past. But was it a film screaming to be made because we had never seen anything like it? No. Yet that does not mean it is not worth having been made and it certainly does not mean you should not take the time to see it. Steel yourself and bring a tissue or two.

Memoir of a Snail available to rent or purchase on digital platforms.