NIC’S FLIX: Memoir of a Snail: A Remarkable Story Worth Telling

Repeat Offenders Section Editor Nic Chang reviews Adam Elliot’s sophomore feature, Memoir of a Snail (2024), the latest triumph in Australian adult stop-motion filmmaking!

Still from Memoir of a Snail (2024) dir. Adam Elliot

Within Adam Elliot’s clay worlds, he’s always proven to be a humanist storyteller. He dives into the lives of his quirky characters, their peculiar interests and how their misfortunes are caused by the miserable social structures that keep failing them. But despite the existential loneliness plaguing his characters, Elliot never resorts to misery porn or emotional manipulation, with his character arcs contemplating the joys, hardships and minutiae of day-to-day living. It’s how his works emotionally resonate to satisfying degrees, and with his sophomore feature, Memoir of a Snail, Elliot still proves he still has the gorgeous clayography and bittersweetness that defined his voice.

Set in 1970s Australia, Memoir of a Snail follows the life of Grace Puddle (Succession’s Sarah Snook), whose mother died during childbirth. In Victoria, she and her twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), are raised by their paraplegic father, Percy (Dominique Pinon), whose juggling career was cut short after a tragic hit-and-run accident, leading him to alcoholism. Despite these misfortunes, Grace and Gilbert shared a close bond and had their own special interests, with Grace’s being around snails, where she kept a jar of them as pets, and Gilbert’s revolving around fire. When Percy passes away in his sleep, the siblings are forcibly separated and thrust into separate homes, with their only form of communication being through written letters. As Grace navigates adulthood in Canberra and befriends the elderly yet lively Pinky (Jacki Weaver), she not only dreams of a career in stop-motion animation but of reuniting with Gilbert.

It goes without saying that Memoir of a Snail is not for children. Beyond its humorous use of nude clay models and sexual innuendos, it is a deeply heart-wrenching film, bringing out the grimmer, more downbeat parts of working-class Australia, which Elliot crafts to visually symbolise the difficulties his characters experience. However, Elliot refrains from letting his material go down the rabbit hole of despair, with most of his first act establishing the joys that Grace experienced in her childhood. She recalls how her dad described childhood: “[it] was like being drunk. Everyone remembers what you did, except you.” It makes the first act feel like a collection of memories, despite the Puddle’s financial limitations, they still find a sense of happiness together.

Still from Memoir of a Snail (2024) dir. Adam Elliot

Elliot’s decision to utilise a frame narrative ensures a nostalgic quality to Grace’s story. He acknowledges how much of an outsider she is, not just because her surgically fixed cleft lip almost makes her appear as a rabbit, but because of how sheltered she is. Even in her lowest moments, Elliot approaches her story with as much sensitivity as possible, wherein it becomes an ode to the eccentric loners in society. But Snook’s vocal performance as Grace delivers the heart and soul of Memoir of a Snail, best embodying her character’s innocence and her mature narration always feeling introspective.

Much like his feature-length debut Mary and Max, Elliot’s claymotion brings out the simultaneous beauty and misery of Australia, with Canberra being ironically touted as “the safest city in Australia” (the sign warning about its sharp edges indicates it isn’t). In the lower-class suburbs of Victoria, the environment appears desolate, colourless and filthy, with its clay models appearing either apathetic or unhappy. In the film’s happier moments, the colour palette appears brighter, but in its more grim moments, it looks darker and grayer than before. Despite this, Elliot plays into a heightened logic to embrace the cartoon sensibilities of claymotion, and even the fingerprints you can see on the clay models adds to the painstaking visual textures. The beauty is undeniable.

That said,  Elliot has challenging subject matter to deal with: childhood trauma, grief, depression, abuse within foster families, and the systemic failures of child protection services. But before he goes too far, he takes a moment. He lets us experience the more devastating narrative developments before giving us room to breathe and to recollect ourselves. With Elliot finding a grounded balance between comedy and tragedy, he lets us be acquainted with his characters’ endlessly fascinating quirks, but never dehumanises them in their more distressing moments. Just as Memoir of a Snail breaks your heart, it mends it.

Still from Memoir of a Snail (2024) dir. Adam Elliot

Because life isn’t about being miserable or merely surviving it. It’s about living it. Memoir of a Snail’s message is embodied best through Pinky’s philosophy: “Life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards.” We are bound to encounter loss and traumas in ways we won’t expect, and rather than face them, it feels ideal to hide away to a much safer place, even when it’s unhealthy. We have our own cracks, some which we can fix but others we can’t. It’s not something to look down upon, but to instead embrace and that whoever you are, you’re still here. Therein lies the more uplifting nature of Memoir of a Snail: you are not alone in what you’ve gone through and your life is worth living.

Admittedly, Memoir of a Snail takes a few stumbles here and there, with its pacing often fluctuating, but it’s easy to forgive when it becomes more symbolic of general human imperfections. It even feels familiar from a tonal and narrative perspective, but since when does familiarity become a genuine problem if it’s especially aiding great storytelling? It even feels like Memoir of a Snail features one too many endings that it becomes easy to predict its final storytelling patterns, and yet, the emotional catharsis is so strong, delivered earnestly, that it’s worth experiencing.

Memoir of a Snail isn’t just a great film, but a universal experience we can relate to. Not only is it a triumph for Australian stop-motion filmmaking and a possible Best Animated Feature candidate, but it’s the type of film capable of helping those that need it.

Still from Memoir of a Snail (2024) dir. Adam Elliot

Rating: ★★★★½