Here is a genuine oddity: a weird little hothouse flower of a film that looks as if it might crumple at the slightest breath of wind – but is actually very resilient. It’s a quirky stop-motion animation, developed from a series of online short films, whose comedy frequency takes a little time to tune into. You have to wait a bit to hear its batsqueak, and before this happens there is a real and understandable danger that you will simply find it insufferably annoying. The film appears to exist in the Venn diagram overlap between twee and hipster, which isn’t for everyone – but let it grow on you, and there is a real sweetness and gentleness in its absurdity, a savant innocence and charm.
The idea is that the film’s director, Dean Fleischer Camp, is staying in an Airbnb after the collapse of his marriage – and this house has only become available for rental because the couple who own it have split up. Fleischer Camp becomes aware that there is someone else in the house: a tiny mollusc called Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) with a single, blinking eye and dinky little human shoes. Marcel is a calm, childlike figure who talks with absolute candour in his tiny voice to Dean about his own problems and Dean’s.
