After a particularly vicious argument with Larissa (Rosa Salazar), Mark (Thomas Mann) hastily packs a suitcase and leaves the house.  Unbeknownst to him, he carries with him a whole community of sentient shells and other small odds and ends beings.  Two shells are left behind, however, Marcel (Jenny Slate) and his grandmother, Connie (Isabella Rossellini).  The pair learn how to live on their own until they are discovered by Dean Fleischer-Camp, playing himself, and he decides to make a small documentary about Marcel for the internet in hopes that someone, somewhere, has clues about where his family is. 

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is the big screen jump for the internet sensation of the early 2010s and finds both Slate and Fleischer-Camp returning to their roles as voice and creator, respectively.  The fearless Leslie Stahl of Sixty Minutes fame lends her talents here to give the mockumentary an air of legitimacy, too.  At 90 minutes, Marcel does not have much time to meander off on tangents from the plot, but there is very little plot to be had here so even with its brief runtime, it feels a little long.  Many of the segments showing off Marcel and Connie’s life, and the cut-away interviews, feel at home with the YouTube roots for the character, and this array of visual quips and quirky interviews quickly wear out their welcome. 

Where the film excels is how it forces a perspective change in the audience.  While the camera is always from Dean’s point of view, his subject is maybe an inch tall at most.  Seeing these everyday objects being used in new and inventive ways is quite enjoyable and unlocks a little bit of childhood imagination and wonder in all of us.  This world that Marcel has created with Connie is the highlight of the entire film, and while it is not enough to set up a feature-length film it creates a wonderful environment for the plot to start and play out. 

When Marcel opens up to the wider world, it starts to fall apart.  The film begins to introduce some TikTok-style videos, which thankfully only take up a brief bit of screentime, and notably, the film takes a quick jab at the darker side of video challenge meme culture, but this entire middle arc finds Marcel treading water.  It becomes very comforting, then, when the film returns to the safety of the house, and it is just Marcel, Connie, and Dean again.  This is where the heart of the film is, and with some restructuring of the middle act and a little more effort put into forming an overall narrative arc, Marcel could have had enough meat on its bones to stay inside where the film is at its strongest. 

Released by A24, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a charming little film despite its stagnant and overly simple narrative.  Wholly unnecessary and even more niche than the other features from the indie distributor, Marcel will speak to a very specific audience and even though the themes it teases out in its narrative are universal, it is incredibly inaccessible to those who do not already have an affinity for the scatterbrained little shell with a big, open heart.