One of the greatest things about animation as a cinematic medium is its ability to use exaggeration not available to live-action in order to sell poignant truths. Australian filmmaker Adam Elliot seems to be a subscriber of this idea. His claymation shorts, as well as his feature debut, Mary and Max, boast uncanny visuals and models, yet capitalise on them to achieve blisteringly effective results. Elliot’s sophomore feature, Memoir of a Snail, champions the importance of embracing life through morbid humour, strange models and a bleak, even crude aesthetic. It’s as odd as it is deceptively powerful.
In 1970s Melbourne, Grace Puddel (Sarah Snook) was born to a broken household. Her mother died birthing her and her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), leaving them to be raised by their single father Percy (Dominique Pinon), a loving man burdened by a crippling alcohol addiction, brought on after an accident left him paraplegic. Bullied by her peers for her cleft lip, with her brother being her only true friend, Grace starts keeping snails as pets – a hobby of her mother’s, her fascination with the animals developing into an obsession with anything snail related.
Already we get the sense of a hard life for Grace, but this only gets worse when Percy suddenly passes away. Grace and Gilbert are separated, forced to live on different sides of Australia – Gilbert in Perth and Grace in Canberra. Although Grace somewhat settles into her new life, mainly due to the connection she makes with a kind but eccentric elderly woman, Pinky (Jacki Weaver), she continues to experience hardship after hardship, her only solace being her ever growing collection of snails and snail-related memorabilia. The story is told through an adult Grace narrating her life to her pet snail Sylvia during a particularly low point.
Memoir of a Snail makes no qualms about how unfair and lonely life can be. In trying to find purpose, companionship and acceptance, we often have to navigate heartbreaking truths and situations, such as the death of a loved one or rejection from our peers. We often have coping mechanisms in place to help us endure, be it partaking in sport, artistic expression, or another hobby that makes life just a touch more bearable. For Grace, collecting and hoarding snails or snail-adjacent merchandise is her coping mechanism, a hobby that quickly spirals into a toxic crutch used to avoid reality – her ever expanding collection reflective of how much pent up sadness and anxiety is bubbling in Grace’s mind.
As with his previous films, Elliot and his team use stop-motion claymation to bring the story to life. Unlike the bright colours or cartoonish visuals of claymations like Wallace and Gromit, the animation here features a spectrum of muted greys, blacks and beiges. The figurine models are humanoid yet still oddly misshapen, while the set design utilises jagged shapes and eerie details to create a sense of discomfort – even a theme park Grace and Gilbert visit as kids has a sad, giant clown’s face at the entrance that wouldn’t be amiss in a horror film. If Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari had been envisioned as a stop-motion picture, it may have looked something like this.
This gives Memoir of a Snail the feel of a bizarre fever dream, something which the crude scenes of sexual exploration and foul-mouthed dialogue only enhances. However, this darker use of colour and clay is designed to reflect the difficulties and intricacies of life’s woes. The film has no interest in sugarcoating trauma, grief, or the destabilising effects such experiences can have on us. The animation is not only disarmingly effective in showcasing this area, but the labour of love is evident for all to see. There was no CGI used at any instance – every single item seen in Grace’s out of control collection, which must number in the dozens if not hundreds, was handmade and added to the picture. It’s a film that radiates with authenticity from its characterisation to its very production design.
Another filmmaker may have caved to the pessimism that this picture details. Yet the film’s poignancy is found in how it uses the darkness of its content to urge Grace, and subsequently the audience, to live life without fear – that you can endure a lot of hardship and still find a reason to smile despite it all. The film keeps this card close to its chest until the final act, yet occasionally lets the audience have a peek through its usage of morbid humour, the actions and dialogue of the characters contrasting with the typically more playful or juvenile medium of claymation. Jacki Weaver’s Pinky gets the most laughs as her sheer adoration for life, and whatever unexpected twists it throws, becomes infectious in its sincerity. Whether she’s dancing on the table in a bar or assuring Grace that life is worth enjoying – while sneaking in a self-deprecating comparison to a scrotum for good measure – Pinky and her friendship with Grace is the spark of optimism that keeps the whole film alive with joy.
It’s the compassion that Elliot has for the characters that ultimately makes Memoir of a Snail so life-affirming. It only showcases such darkness because it has faith that people can survive them and grow into something stronger. That gentleness is reflected in the voice performances. Sarah Snook carries Grace with a meek gravitas, her narration of her life story hinting at the deeper trauma that Grace is subduing even as she’s describing some awful developments in detail. Yet, just like the film, Snook’s voice work provides ample room for embracing happiness and joy wherever it can be found. It’s a film that brims with earnestness.
Towards the end, Memoir of a Snail does engage in a bit of narrative contrivance, namely with a twist involving the sudden appearance of a character. It doesn’t quite cheapen the themes or tone, but it does feel like a bit too happy of a conclusion for such an unashamedly dark picture. Nevertheless, Memoir of a Snail proves a wonderful work of animation. Bleak and morbid in abundance, it uses its stellar animated craft to champion humanity and inner strength even in the face of a lifetime of trauma. Visually unique, darkly idiosyncratic and bolstering a message of joy underneath its heavy narrative, Memoir of a Snail is one of 2024’s best animated features.
Memoir of a Snail is in cinemas now
Rating: 
Director: Adam Elliot
Writer: Adam Elliot
Stars: Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Dominique Pinon, Magda Szubanski, Tony Armstrong, Eric Bana
Runtime: 94 minutes
Country: Australia
