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As last words go, “the potatoes” are not as romantic as “rosebud.” Yet, for Grace Prudence Pudel, her elderly friend’s dying breath is just as cryptic and even more frustrating. Life threw a lot on Pudel’s shoulders, but crazy old “Pinky” might just have some parting wisdom to help her carry on in Adam Elliot’s stop-motion animated feature Memoir of a Snail, which opens Friday in New York.
Pudel must face a moment of deep reflection after Pinky’s death. While contemplating how to dispose of her ashes, she decides to also release her pet snails into the [relative] wild of Pinky’s beloved garden. As Pudel sees it, this finally leaves her completely alone.
Viewers then witness how she reached this point during the extended flashback that makes up the bulk of Elliot’s narrative. Pudel and her beloved twin brother Gilbert never knew their late mother, who died soon after their births. Frankly, they acted more like guardians of their grieving wheelchair-bound father Percy than vice versa. Nevertheless, the alcoholic former Parisian Street performer still clearly loved them, until he finally succumbed to his physical and emotional ailments.
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To compound the tragedy, Pudel and her brother were separated, placed with vastly different foster parents, who were both exceedingly cringy, but in vastly different ways. At least her fosters, Ian and Narelle are reasonably supportive, despite their naughty swinger lifestyle and annoying devotion to self-help books. Nevertheless, Pudel slowly retreats into her own insular world of pet snails and an unhealthy collection of snail-related merchandise.
Poor Gilbert is not so fortunate. He finds himself placed with a fundamentalist family that works him all day on their farm and then expects him to pray all night in church. Arguably, Gilbert’s fosters often sound more like a pagan cult than typical Evangelicals. Regardless, both siblings constantly yearn for their reunion.
Elliot clearly specializes in using Claymation-like techniques to tell acutely human stories. His previous feature, Mary and Max, chronicles the pen pal relationship between an Australian girl with a “poo-colored” facial birthmark and a cranky New Yorker living with Asperger’s. His films directly address themes of loneliness, recovery, and emotional renewal, but he really takes his time getting to the hopeful part in Memoir of a Snail. He gets there, but, boy, does he make the audience earn it.
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On the other hand, Elliot shows just how eloquently stop-motion animation can express human emotions and humanistic drama. He truly makes his clay characters look and feel lifelike. Eliott also recruited some top Australian voice talent, starting with Succession’s Sarah Snook providing Pudel’s shy voice. In contrast, Jacki Weaver aptly expresses Pinky’s sly sarcasm and her warm outgoing personality.
In briefer roles, Eric Bana plays against type as a homeless former magistrate Pudel befriends. Plus, Nick Cave also supplies the voice of Pinky’s ill-fated second husband in a flashback within the main flashback. (Bad Seeds fans should note they can hear more of Cave in an animated context as the narrator of Eddie White & Ari Gibson’s wonderfully stylish noir-fantasy short, The Cat Piano).
Elliot’s clay figures are highly expressive, especially when they literally tear up. He also created several incredibly detailed sets and backdrops. His meticulous attention to detail is truly impressive. Without question, Memoir of a Snail perfectly represents the distinctive look and texture of Elliot’s animation as well as the deeply heartfelt, personal nature of his stories (but it is still heavy stuff). Recommended for patrons of adult, non-genre animation, Memoir of a Snail opens Friday (10/25) in New York.
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Grade: B+
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Here’s the trailer of the film.