Film review: ‘Memoirs of a Snail,’ a stop-motion charmer, examines the shells we build around us

It’s not your typical stop-motion film when characters name their pets after Sylvia Plath and read “The Diary of Anne Frank” – or when the story is inspired by a quote from existentialist thinker Søren Kierkegaard.

And it’s certainly not your typical stop-motion film when you cry as much as the characters do – in their case, with huge droplets leaking from bulging egg-shaped eyes, so authentic-looking you expect the screen to get wet.

But these are just some of the unique things about Adam Elliot’s “Memoirs of a Snail,” a film that is as moving as it is technically impressive, a work of emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper. and paint.

One thing Elliot’s movie isn’t, however, is for kids. So take note before you head to the multiplex with the family in tow: This movie earns an R rating, as you’ll find out once young Grace, voiced by Sarah Snook, tells us that she thought masturbation was chewing your food properly. Sex, nudity, drunk driving, fat fetish – like we said, it’s X-rated for a reason.

But let’s start from the beginning. In this, his seventh “claiography” (for “clay” and “biography”), the Australian writer and director explores the process of collecting unnecessary objects. Also known as accumulation, it is something that weighs us down in a way that we cannot see, despite all the clutter. Elliot also argues that this helps us build constrictive shells around ourselves – like snail shells, perhaps.

Our protagonist is Grace Pudel, voiced with quirky warmth and great empathy by the wonderfully agile Snook. We first meet Grace as a grown woman, telling her long and lonely life story to her pet garden snail, Sylvia (named after Plath), in a moment of deep sadness.

So we go back to childhood. Grace is born with a twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The mother dies during childbirth, leaving the twins with their father, a film animator. Grace needs surgery to correct a cleft palate and doctors ask young Gilbert to donate blood; he thinks this means he will have to die to let her live, and he still says yes. (Those tears we mentioned? They start here.)

The two brothers live a sad life with their father, a life that becomes even sadder when a collision with a drunk driver leaves him paraplegic. It won’t be long before their father dies in his sleep, leaving them orphans. And no one wants a complete set of twins, so Grace and Gilbert are forcibly separated and sent to opposite sides of Australia.

Grace is sent to Canberra, a city so boring and safe that people drive cars with helmets. And Gilbert is sent to a farm, with a cruel family of evangelists. The two exchange letters and pray that they will meet again. Grace’s parents are swingers (it’s the 70s) and end up leaving her for a nudist colony. Her only companions are snails, which she loves, just like her mother – both in live and ornamental versions.

Pinky appears five years later. The elderly lady – voiced huskily by long-time Australian star Jacki Weaver – has quite the past. She lost her finger dancing in a bar in Barcelona. She played ping pong with Fidel Castro. She has outlived two husbands. Their friendship eases Grace’s sadness.

But still, there is a deep hole where Brother Gilbert should be. Grace adds kleptomania to her “list of hobbies.” She also starts to accumulate in earnest. Finally, she meets Ken, a microwave repairman. She believes she has found love.

Life has crueler twists in store, and you won’t see them coming in this cleverly constructed – yet unabashedly weird – script. But Elliot served here not only as writer and director but also as production designer, and his crowning achievement is a rich visual world dominated by various shades of brown and populated by 7,000 handmade objects. Around 135,000 photographs taken on 200 sets were used to create the film.

However, all this technical skill would be useless without the emotional core that resonates throughout. Elliot gave the wise Pinky, in her huge red glasses, the aforementioned Kierkegaard quote (with just a slight edit): “Life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards,” she says. to Grace. And snails, she adds, never go backwards. Neither should Grace — and neither should we.

Who would have thought that a censored stop-motion film about molluscs could provide such a universal lesson?

“Memoir of a Snail,” an IFC Films release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association “for sexual content, nudity and some violent content. “Running time: 94 minutes. Three stars out of four.