A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel – a hoarder of snails, romance novels, and guinea pigs.

‘Memoir of a Snail’ is an Australian stop motion animated movie loosely based on the life of the writer and director Adam Elliot. It follows a lonely misfit called Grace Pudel through childhood and adulthood, as her life suffers one misfortune after the other, some of them incredibly dark and others played for more comedic effect. It has a cracking voice cast led by Sarah Snook, and the animation style is reminiscent of ‘Coraline’ or more pertinently, Elliot’s debut feature in the brilliant ‘Mary and Max’, but overall, it wasn’t a movie I loved.

The title refers to the fact that Grace likes to collect snails, which she refers to as her friends and who form the one constant in a turbulent life that begins with her and her brother being separated as teenagers after their parents die. The journey that follows is one that swings wildly from pretty funny to deeply bleak, often at the same time and I’ve seen ‘Memoir of a Snail’ described as tragicomic which is as good a word as any to describe it. The bleakness largely comes from Grace’s experiences herself, with the comedy coming from some of the characters she interacts with, whether it be her swinger foster parents or the former dancer Pinky (Jacki Weaver), who regales her with eccentric tales from her life. Yes, this is definitely an animation aimed at adults.

I like this style of animation and I enjoyed the voice work (Australian accents work very well for deadpan humour), but I found the story a bit too miserable and bleak to really get on board with, and yes, I do know that is largely the point!

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Adam Elliot

Starring: Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Eric Bana, Magda Szubanski, Dominique Pinon, Tony Armstrong, Paul Capsis, Nick Cave, and Jacki Weaver

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt23770030/