The stop-motion, four-hankie Australian import Memoir of a Snail comes out of the gate ready to tug at your heartstrings.
The movie follows Grace (voiced as an adult by Succession star Sarah Snook), a single Aussie girl whose eyes are both wide and sad — she looks like a three-dimensional version of sad-sack comic-strip character Cathy. Grace is a self-professed malacologist (she even rocks a beanie with snail eyes on top), and after the death of her eccentric, elderly BFF Pinky (Jacki Weaver), she reminisces to Sylvia, one of several snails she has collected in her life.
Grace’s life has seen more pain than joy. She takes Sylvia and the viewers all the way back to her own premature birth, when she came out of the womb a few moments before her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Even though Grace is technically the oldest, Gilbert is a protective bro, ready to snap a bully’s middle finger for mocking her stitched-up “floppy lip.” (“Rabbit Face” is unfortunately a taunt Grace is stuck with for most of her childhood.)
The twins are inseparable — that is, until their paraplegic father (Jean-Pierre Jeunet regular Dominique Pinon) dies and they’re forced to split up and live in foster homes on opposite ends of the continent. While Grace is luckily placed with positive (and sex-positive) foster parents, the already-angry-at-the-world Gilbert has to suffer through life with an oppressive, uber-religious clan that’s more about breaking the boy’s spirit than uplifting it.
When adult Grace hits her kleptomaniac lonesome-hoarder era, Pinky comes to the rescue. The Cuban-cigar-smoking golden girl has led one wild life, from working as a tassel-twirling exotic dancer to having sex with John Denver in a helicopter. (The movie’s most darkly comedic moments come when she recalls the freak-accident deaths of her two ex-husbands.) But she’s always there for Grace, encouraging her to stick it out even when things get dire for both of them.
Memoir is another tragicomic gem from Australian animator Adam Elliot, a filmmaker who traffics in making claymated dramedies about people who do everything they can to look on the bright side of life. Made over a period of eight years, Memoir is Elliot giving a pristine view of how ugly things can get for people sometimes. (Fans of Henry Selick’s gothic, sinewy, stop-motion animation may get a sick kick out of this one.) Elliot has no problem making his supporting players look repugnant on the inside and outside. Even the good-hearted Pinky admits she has a head like “a testicle.”
While this cartoon may appeal more to depressed and despondent folks than precious, Pixar-loving tykes, Memoir doesn’t completely descend into hopeless, nihilistic cynicism. Even though there are myriad scenes with droplets of tears coming out of his characters’ teacup eyes, Elliot loves his creations too much to have them completely wallow in misery. The director got some vulnerable, darling voice work out of Snook and Smit-McPhee, and the three collectively work to have you rooting for these characters, especially when they finally receive some brief moments of happiness.
Ultimately, Elliot is an empathetic softie, and Memoir of a Snail is a somewhat autobiographical (yes, Grace has aspirations of becoming a filmmaker) reminder to those outcast, trauma-plagued moviegoers that life is, indeed, a roller-coaster ride — and the only thing you can do is hold the fuck on and make the most of it.
And just in case you don’t get that message, yes, a roller coaster does show up in the movie.
