REVIEW: Memoir of a Snail [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 95 minutes
Release Date: October 17th, 2024 (Australia) / October 25th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Madman Entertainment / IFC Films
Director(s): Adam Elliot
Writer(s): Adam Elliot

Sport was one of my allergies.

There are the cages people put us in and the cages we construct around ourselves. Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook) is a victim of both.

The first prison she resided in, however, was created by fate. Born the twin of Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), both children would enter this world at the price of their mother leaving it. And since their Frenchman father (Dominique Pinon’s Percy) had recently fallen victim to a drunk driving accident (leaving him a paraplegic and alcoholic himself), the siblings were forced to fend for themselves even before they were actually, inevitably left alone. Percy’s death and the lack of homes willing to take on two children at once meant separate foster homes on opposite sides of the Australian desert.

Oscar-winning (for animated short Harvie Krumpet) filmmaker Adam Elliot’s latest Memoir of a Snail starts at the end with an older Grace reminiscing about a life marred by tragedy to her best friend—a snail named Sylvia. Her best human friend Pinky (Jacki Weaver) has just passed from old age and Grace can’t help but take stock in everything she’s experienced up until this point in the hopes of finding a path out of the malaise and pain of grief yet again. So, she goes back to the beginning. Birth. Becoming an orphan. Lonely togetherness and lonely isolation. Even the happy moments ultimately reveal themselves to be carrying an unavoidably nightmarish wrinkle.

The film is shot entirely in “clayography” with nary a second of CGI. It’s a feat worth mentioning because of the amount of fire (what looks like crinkling cellophane) and expansive sets (the opening credits one-shot unfolds via a swooping camera through a massive, hoarded pile of meticulously positioned objects) being used. Add the water (a surplus of tears and even sweat drops upon an upper lip) and meta stop-motion (Percy was an animator and Grace aspires to follow in his footsteps) and the detail to craft is impossible to ignore.

Where it stands apart from its ilk, though, is the darkly comic subject matter that pulls zero punches. Bullying. Abandonment. Bigotry. Religious zealotry. Psychological disorders. Gaslighting. Grace’s tale consists of horror story after horror story with nothing but the letters from her brother and the kindness of an aging Pinky to shine a light through the darkness. This is a character mired in depression almost from her first breath and she fills the emotional void with things (preferably snail-related) until her only outlet with which to continue forward despite being broke is to steal. So, of course, what should have been the happiest day of her life instead proves to be the worst.

Thankfully, those moments of despair do sometimes carry a gift of perspective. Grace is a compassionate and caring soul who can be easily manipulated by exploitative personalities, so the chance to pause and look around with open (albeit tearful) eyes is crucial to her salvation. It helps that there’s always been a bit of magic in her life too. Coincidences aren’t therefore a product of luck as much as karma. After all the suffering she’s been made to endure, she deserves a couple wins—even if just by accident. Our hope is that one day she’ll be able to break free from the chains of her past to embrace an unknown future.

It’s not a mistake then that Memoir of a Snail is R-rated. Yes, it earns the distinction with nudity and language, but I’m talking about the fact that its lesson isn’t meant for children. Grace is an adult by the time she faces her moment of reflection and epiphany. She’s already survived a debilitating childhood and is now facing the ramifications of the coping mechanisms she adopted to do so. Her kindness and morality are unassailable, so the lesson isn’t to be better to others. No, Grace must learn to be better to herself. Sure, kids can benefit from that knowledge too, but they have time to figure it out. Adults in Grace’s circumstances often believe their time has passed.

What Grace (and we) discover here, however, is that it’s never too late. You can make the choice to stop going backwards along the trails you’ve already walked and become the snail who steadfastly moves ahead. You might even surprise yourself to find the way forward was always unblocked and waiting. You must only allow yourself the opportunity to notice it.