5/5
Review by John P. Harvey.
Most of Memoir of a Snail is framed as a recounting of the life of young Grace (Sarah Snook), an eccentric who has not seen her equally eccentric twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), in the years since they were separated as orphans. Grace — who is not a snail — has just farewelled her dear friend, an old lady named Pinky (Jacki Weaver), in Canberra, where she has lived since Child Protection’s removal of the twins from their Melbourne home.
Grace has been an obsessive collector of snail paraphernalia, and in fact her best friend is a snail named Sylvia, whom she has just set free in Pinky’s vegetable patch.
Grace’s tale is one of quirky characters, generous acts, delicious karma… and a revelation leading to a life-changing discovery that sets her on the creative path she had abandoned all hope of following.
The film’s visuals are something else: relying entirely on built sets and stop-motion animation, they’re as smooth as butter. The opening shot alone, which played for a minute and a half behind the opening titles, defies belief. (It in fact depended on a reprogrammed robotic arm to achieve.)
The ability of the course of this plasticine character’s … life… to evoke the emotional highs and lows that it does is testament to a great many factors: an engaging story; a rich, emotionally labile original soundtrack, recorded by the Australian Chamber Orchestra; a great variety of voices, including those of Eric Bana, Nick Cave, and Magda Szubanski; great use of colour; rich humorous detail in scenery and props; incredibly skilful stop-motion animators; and, above all, characters we could all relate to and hope the best for. An Australian-made film for all the family, Memoir of a Snail is sure to maintain a following for many years to come.