Memoir of a Snail

Set in 1970s Australia, Memoir of a Snail follows Grace Pudel, a shy girl who collects decorative snails and loses herself in romance novels. After her mother dies and her paraplegic, alcoholic father passes away in his sleep, Grace and her twin brother Gilbert are placed in separate foster homes, and she waits in vain for letters from him while enduring indifference and bullying. Her retreat into herself mirrors the shells of the creatures she keeps, until an eccentric older woman named Pinky draws her out and restores some joy to her life. The film is a stop-motion animated feature written and directed by Adam Elliot, his third feature-length work after Harvie Krumpet and Mary and Max, and he also produced it with Liz Kearney. Sarah Snook voices Grace, with Kodi Smit-McPhee as Gilbert, Jacki Weaver as Pinky, and supporting turns from Magda Szubanski, Dominique Pinon and Tony Armstrong, among a credited cast of 47 and crew of 56.

Made on a budget of about 4 million US dollars, the film runs 94 minutes and was released in October 2024. Its ratings are strong across the board: 7.8 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 25,000 votes, 8.1 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller base of 832 votes, and a critics' rating of 8.2 out of 10 from 147 reviews. That critics' figure sits slightly above the broader IMDb audience score, while the smaller TMDB sample is the most favourable of the three. The numbers point to a well-received film that found a devoted audience without becoming a mass-market hit.