Film Review - Memoir of a Snail

Adam Elliot’s grown-up stop-motion animation gem is an offbeat, melancholy delight

Feb 24, 2025

This sublime stop-motion feature by Mary and Max (2009) writer-director Adam Elliot may well be dismissed by those who still, despite the many examples to the contrary, believe animation is always for children. I was reminded of this depressing reality recently in an unwelcome interaction with a particularly boorish acquaintance. In this person’s case, I’ve ceased bothering to correct their misconception. However, for this review, I’ll make it abundantly clear: Memoir of a Snail is not for children unless you want to have a lot of awkward conversations with them about sex, swingers, nudists, oppressive religious cults, domestic abuse, manipulation, coercive control, fetishism, alcoholism, drugs, kleptomania, death, depression, more death, more depression, and death again (this isn’t an exhaustive list).

Yet, for all its misery, Memoir of a Snail features occasional rays of hope like watery sunrays piercing the thick grey gloom of a rainy day. This offbeat, Oscar-nominated gem concerns Melbourne-based Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook). She lives with her beloved proto-pyromaniac twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and her alcoholic, wheelchair-bound, former French street entertainer father Percy (Dominique Pinon). Grace and Gilbert’s strong bond has been present ever since their mother died in childbirth, and they are all but inseparable in their introverted world. They read books, explode fireworks, and ride the local rollercoaster together, shunned by other children who consider them weird until tragedy strikes. This results in Grace being sent to live with a self-help obsessed, positivity platitude-spouting swinger couple in Canberra, and Gilbert being sent to Perth to live with an abusive religious cult (an absurdly twisted version of evangelical Christianity with a bit of New Age aura balancing thrown in too). Heartbroken, Grace and Gilbert long to return to one another.

What does any of this have to do with snails? Well, for a start, Grace narrates the story to a snail, with her life unfolding in flashbacks. Also, Grace’s mother was obsessed with snails, and her daughter has followed in her footsteps, collecting snail memorabilia as well as real snails, generating a vast amount of clutter that gradually grows as the film unfolds. The life and habits of snails provide many apt metaphors, including one about how a snail never goes back over its own trail. “Life can only be understood backwards, but it has to be experienced forwards,” Grace is told by Pinky (Jacki Weaver), her eccentric elderly friend, who has had an exceptionally colourful life. Grace’s identification with snails provides comfort, but it also begins to trap her.

Vocal performances are terrific (listen out for Eric Bana and Nick Cave in the supporting cast), and the tactile, hand-crafted animation is a surreal treat. Bereft of computer graphic visual effects, this features gloriously analogue, large-eyed, wire-haired, eccentric characters coming to life in extraordinary ways. For example, the frequent use of tears is remarkably effective. Thematically, this explores everything from childhood trauma to repressed homosexuality, coming-of-age, and the struggle to cling to hope when life seems to pile cruelty upon cruelty. It may sound depressing, but it rings true because it’s shot through with an engaging dark humour. I suspect anyone creative or anyone who has ever felt shunned for being different will relate in some way.

Without getting into spoilery specifics, one thing I particularly loved in Memoir of a Snail is its demonstration of a simple kind deed later yielding a reward. This poignant moment (and others) makes it worth sticking with, despite the painful turns of the narrative. In short, this is a melancholy but beautiful film, highly recommended to those with the disposition for it.

(Originally published at Medium.)