Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)

Jack and I really liked this sweet animated story of the tiny anthropomorphic shell being filmed in his home for a documentary by a human while yearning for his missing family members. Drawn from a trilogy of online short films, all versions feature co-writer Jenny Slate as Marcel's voice and were directed and co-written by Dean Fleischer Camp, who plays the documentarian in the flesh this time. Isabella Rossellini provides the voice of Nana Connie and there's a cameo that I think I'll let you find out for yourself because revealing it ahead of time might be a spoiler.

Nick Paley is another co-writer of the screenplay and has "story by" credit, along with Slate, Camp, and Elisabeth Holm.

The nice music by Disasterpeace is available on Apple Music and probably elsewhere. The three original videos can be streamed on YouTube (One, Two, Three).

Slate was last blogged for acting in Everything Everywhere All at Once and this is her first screenplay. Rossellini was previously in these pages for The Zigzag Kid and Holm for Landline, which starred Slate. This is Camp's acting and feature directing debut and Paley's first released feature screenplay.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are all laced up, averaging 98 and 90%, respectively. We watched it on April 25 and it can be streamed on Showtime or Paramount+ or you can rent it from the usual outlets.