Memoir of a Snail

Content Advisory: Abuse, Self-injurious behavior, Homophobia

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A lonely woman tells her life story to her pet snail in Memoir of a Snail. After the death of her last remaining friend friend Pinky (Jacki Weaver), Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook) goes into the garden and releases her longtime pet snail Sylvia. As Sylvia inches her way to her final destination, recounts her sad life story, beginning with her mother dying while giving birth to Grace and her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee).

As children, Grace and Gilbert lived with their French father Percy (Dominique Pinon), a former juggler now confined to a wheelchair after being hit by a car. However, following Percy’s untimely death due to his sleep apnea, Grace and Gilbert find themselves separated into different foster families, with Grace living with a pair of swingers in Canberra and Gilbert being stuck with the ultra-religious Perth apple farms Ruth (Magda Szubanski) and Owen (Bernie Clifford). However, Grace finds a beacon of light in her life when she meets the freespirited Pinky.

Memoir of a Snail Synopsis

Memoir of a Snail is the sophomore feature-length film from Academy Award winning stop motion animator Adam Elliot (Harvey Krumpet, Mary & Max). The film stars Sarah Snook (Succession, Predestination) as the voice of the angst and anxiety ridden protagonist and narrator Grace Pudel. Since childhood, Grace has been obsessed with snails, whom she views as her true friends. Grace also has an immensely close relationship with her twin brother Gilbert, voiced as an adult by Kodi Smit-McPhee (Slow West, The Power of the Dog), especially after he donated blood for a life-saving transfusion.

Things take a turn for the worse in Grace’s life after the sudden death of her father, resulting in she and Gilbert being sent to separate foster families. However, Grace finds herself uplifted by the freespirited Pinky, voiced by Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook). Pinky becomes a surrogate parent for Grace, helping her when things are low.

My Thoughts on Memoir of a Snail

A little over a decade ago, I came across Adam Elliot‘s 2009 debut feature Mary & Max and absolutely loved and related to the film’s honest and unflinching depiction of a man diagnosed with what was then known as Asperger’s Syndrome. Apart from the short film Ernie Biscuit released in 2015, it has taken fifteen years for Adam Elliot to produce a follow-up to Mary & Max. Memoir of a Snail continues what Adam Elliot describes as his “Trilogy of Trilogies,” consisting of three short shorts, three long shorts, and three features.

Like Mary & Max, Memoir of a Snail is focused on a neurodiverse protagonist. However, while Max was an isolated man on the autism spectrum, Grace is a woman suffering from severe angst and anxiety. Grace’s loneliness is only increased when she gets older, as she is separated from her twin brother Gilbert and faces one personal tragedy after another.

The films of Adam Elliot are one of the key examples of animation not purely being a medium for children. In addition to the very serious mental health themes of the film, Memoir of a Snail features a sizable amount of adult content, including gratuitous nudity, due to the fact that the protagonist Grace’s foster parents are swingers. However, the film also has an immense level of heart.

Memoir of a Snail is built around the lead voice performance by Sarah Snook, whose character Grace is the primary narrator of the film. In addition to other leads voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jacki Weaver, the film features Eric Bana as the voice of a Masturbating Magistrate and musician Nick Cave has a single line cameo, which can be easy to miss if you aren’t listening for it. As a whole, Memoir of a Snail is less a film dependant on dialogue and one that lets the visuals tells the story, based on Grace’s narration.

While I didn’t have the same personal relation to Memoir of a Snail than I did to Mary & Max, I still believe the film to be a successful sophomore feature from Adam Elliot. The film is an example of how the medium of animation can be used to tell very personal stories. The end result is a film that will end up pulling at your heartstrings.

Trailer for Memoir of a Snail