Memoir of a Snail
IFC Films | Release Date: October 25, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyNov 13, 2024
The genuine cathartic effect of the film is achieved by an accumulation of smart choices, including the dryly witty narration, the ingenious visual surreal world building using kids’ crafts table materials, the strong voice cast (including vocal cameos from Eric Bana and Nick Cave) and an elegant classical-style score. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesManuel BetancourtOct 29, 2024
Despite its intimate focus, Memoir of a Snail is a towering achievement. This touching animated film serves as a reminder that Elliot is a humanist who clearly sculpts his “clayographies” (as he dubs his films) from the very essence of life itself. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithOct 25, 2024
Mr. Elliot’s script is so rich and gently funny that he could easily have made an excellent live-action feature from it. As it is, though, the animation makes it even more lovable. Read full review
90
Screen RantMary KasselOct 25, 2024
Memoir of a Snail never asks us or the narrative to compare the depth of sadness or experience. Every experience is treated with equal weight and importance. Even as we realize that Grace's life is becoming a string of misfortunes, it's impossible not to stick with her. Read full review
90
ColliderNate RichardOct 23, 2024
Elliot’s stop-motion work feels authentic and unglamorized in ways that we don’t often see in many mainstream animated movies. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeJul 19, 2024
Elements that might feel frivolous on first mention invariably pay off later, as Elliot brings things around in thoughtful and emotional ways, to the point you forget you’re watching people made of Plasticine. Read full review
90
Screen DailyWendy IdeJul 19, 2024
As hilarious as it is heart-wrenching – frequently within the same scene. Read full review
88
Washington PostAmy NicholsonNov 1, 2024
Memoir of a Snail, by the Oscar-winning Australian animator Adam Elliot, is a grubby delight, a stop-motion charmer that feels like falling into a dumpster and discovering an orchid. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoSep 24, 2024
It’s a gorgeous film, but it’s also an emotionally intelligent movie, one that shifts and flows between comedy and tragedy, reminding us that life can only be lived forwards. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 25, 2024
Yes, life can only be understood backwards, but Memoir of a Snail makes a sweetly compelling case that we’ll see the beauty in it one day — such a sweetly compelling case, in fact, that you might just start looking for it now Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeFeb 19, 2025
It’s bleak, certainly. But what makes this a distinctively Elliot film is not the relentless misfortune but the flashes of mordant humour to be found alongside Grace’s hoarded knick-knacks, and the care with which the director handles his damaged, cherished social outcasts. Read full review
80
EmpireBeth WebbFeb 14, 2025
Weird and wonky in the best way, this is a compelling character study that makes its joys, however fleeting, feel truly earned. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyFeb 13, 2025
For all the gloom, this is a lovely, heartfelt creation from the Oscar-winning animator. Read full review
80
Time OutKambole CampbellFeb 10, 2025
Memoir of a Snail is not just a stop-motion animation that feels handmade from top to bottom. It tells a deeply human story about a hard-won route to happiness – with all the pain and missteps that go with it. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJul 19, 2024
The artisanal spirit and abundant creativity of the enterprise is undeniable, immersing us in a vivid world crafted from clay, wire, paper and paint, without a single frame of CG imagery. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 19, 2024
There’s an ingenuousness and innocence to Memoir of a Snail, a family-entertainment approachability that belies a strange intensity. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerNov 4, 2024
In this charming, funny, tear-inducing, and instantly recognizable world, and through the (in)actions of Grace, Elliot tells a gentle, touching, bitter-but-ultimately-sweet fable with a warming message: It’s OK to leave your shell behind. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenOct 25, 2024
There’s a fleshiness to the material that you can almost feel, as if you were stroking your own face. Read full review
75
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckOct 22, 2024
A film that’s as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineSteven ScaifeOct 21, 2024
Adam Elliot, whose work is no stranger to despondency, never allows the film to fully succumb to despair. Read full review
75
The Film StageDavid KatzJul 19, 2024
It’s dazzling as handiwork and world-building, but more questionable if we scrutinize it as just as a work or piece of psychological realism, which it has aspirations of being. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonOct 24, 2024
The world that Elliot creates is so strangely beautiful that it’s fun to look at. Plus, the end of “Memoir of a Snail” redeems its flights into tedium by giving us a reason to have watched them. Read full review
68
The Daily BeastNick SchagerOct 28, 2024
No matter its hopeful closing notes, it’s a downer of epic proportions, its action encased in a shroud of loss, loneliness, and depression that’s at once bracing and taxing. Read full review
60
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsFeb 11, 2025
Its recourse to human suffering as a way to jerk a viewer to react feels tiresome after a while, and it’s not helped by an ending which serves as a quick-fix band aid suggesting that sublime happiness is just an unlikely plot twist away. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerOct 24, 2024
Though crafted with wry care and a captivatingly scuzzy aesthetic, the bittersweet biography is so miserable that the “sweet” ends up as a cloying chaser to old escargot. Read full review
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