Okay, we’ve been looking forward to seeing Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail for some time. It just launched in the UK after beginning its worldwide release in October 2024.
Elliot’s previous work includes the brilliant Mary and Max (2009). This film continues on with dark themes explored there, including introversion, mental illness, disability, alienation, death, loneliness—life as a misfit.
This is a challenging film and, to be clear, not at all for kids. Elliot is to be applauded for his focus here as this is a major release with some disturbing topics, although the film does have a celebratory close.
Misfit Melancholia in Memoir of a Snail
WARNING! Minor spoilers are ahead, but we won’t ruin the main story arc.
This film isn’t about a snail (just so you know). The story is loosely based on director Elliot’s early life in 1970s Melbourne, Australia.
Thus! The plot begins in the 1970s and we meet young Grace Prudel (voiced by Sarah Snook). She lives with her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and her father. He’s an alcoholic paraplegic who dies in their youth, not long after their mother.
Grace is a misfit and takes up her mother’s hobby of collecting snails, a growing infatuation that acts as a protective shell to block out the real world. As real life is pretty nasty stuff, you know? Especially at school.
Gilbert is a bit of a maverick and follows his father’s penchant for circus acts. When he grows older, he wants to be a fire breather entertainer on the streets of Paris.
Fanciful dreams as a coping mechanism become a big part of the narrative arc.
After the death of their father, the siblings are forced to part ways. Gilbert is sent to the other side of the country where he lives with a fanatical religious extremist camp. His rebellious ways are quashed by extreme conservativism.
However, he writes to Grace and promises they’ll meet up again.
Grace is adopted by foster parents Ian and Narelle. They’re well meaning, but also have a manic belief in self-help books. Plus, they’re swingers and spend a lot of their time sleeping around with other locals (which they do with alarming cheerfulness).
Their foster child is left to try and fit into the Canberra community.
Grace soon finds she doesn’t fit in very well. In her teenager years her efforts to get a boyfriend don’t lead anywhere and the result is she further channels her neurosis into mass purchasing snail products.
Life is tough for Grace and she’s uncertain of her place in the world, becoming increasingly isolated and depressed.
She does, however, meet the awesome Pinky (voiced by Jacki Weaver). This eccentric older lady has led a mercurial life, is full of bizarre wisdom, and acts as a kind of mother figure for Grace.
Much of the film focusses on Grace’s relationship with Pinky and what the former learns from the latter. All whilst she deals with her mental health battles and the possibility of reuniting with Gilbert.
Memoir of a Snail is commendably bleak with its premise.
We mean that in an odd way, we guess, as there’s no sugar-coating the experience. The director doesn’t hold back from portraying the reality of Grace’s struggles. It’s a film about coping with life’s difficulties and showcases individuals burying their issues amongst escapist pursuits, some of them unrealistic and others self-destructive.
But the prevailing message is no matter the hardships, out of the other side there can come some good. As the film does have a happy ending of sorts, just one after a lot of heartache.
Covering the merits—it’s a very good film we feel veers enormously towards top marks, yet falls shorts due to the odd stagnant moment (it’s 94 minutes, just occasionally lapses into meandering around nothing). However, that’s being very critical. As Elliot displays the peaks of claymation/animation are just as high as any other genre of movie.
It’s a challenging film and one within which most viewers will find a, possibly uncomfortable, reflection of their own lives.
Memoir of a Snail’s Extended Production
It took eight years to develop the film, which was handcrafted at a studio in Melbourne. The claymation filming process was much faster than getting everything else together, with the shoot beginning in May 2023.
Director Adam Elliot is from Berwick, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne where he grew up in the 1970s.
Much of his childhood experiences fuelled Memoir of a Snail’s plot. For example, Elliot’s father was an acrobatic clown (as Grace Prudel’s father is). Elliot also has a hereditary physiological tremor, which he’s added into his various works by highlighting uneven lines during cinematography.
He’s also confirmed all the characters in the film are based on individuals he’s met (highlighting just how casually eccentric most people are… without often acknowledging it).
Eagle-eyed fans of his work will notice snails are a theme in Elliot’s work. In Mary and Max, the latter individual (an autistic middle-aged man) keeps them as pets and names them after physicists.
Anyway, as for the cast Memoir of a Snail is a hotbed of top Australian talent. The lovely Sarah Snook was confirmed as Grace Prudel’s voiceover work in February 2024. That’s a big deal as Snook is peak fame, what with her excellent performance in the various Succession series as Shiv Roy.
Here is Snook offering her feedback on the recording experience.
We should add, too, this is only Adam Elliot’s second full feature film! We do hope it’s not another 15 years until his next one. The last thing he did was a clayography short called Ernie Biscuit in 2015.
This does highlight how long the whole filmmaking process can be.
Again, all of this has taken eight years. But with a talented cast onboard and great crew the film is critically acclaimed already. It’s nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars this year. It’s up against a tough selection, we’ll add, but best of luck to it. It’s a good one. 🐌
