Marcel, in case you’re not familiar, was the subject of three stop-motion animated shorts made between 2010 and 2014, each with a runtime of under four minutes. Marcel is cuter than Edith Ann, to be sure, and a little more mature at that, but the concept is remarkably similar—take a look at the world through the eyes of a naïve-but-wise child (in this case, an anthropomorphic seashell voiced by Jenny Slate) if only to appreciate how weird some of our social conventions are, or perhaps to shine a light on things we take for granted. Truth be told, though, much as I loved those little films, four minutes seemed to be stretching the concept to its limits.

Thankfully, Slate and former husband Dean Fleischer Camp—who cowrote and directed the original shorts and the feature film together—knew better than to simply fill up more time with Marcel’s trademark “guess what . . .” gags. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On—the movie, that is—has a for-real narrative arc, one that organically emerges from the original concept while also expanding it. Marcel and his grandmother (voiced here by Isabella Rossellini) are all that remain of their family, who disappeared when the former owners of their house broke up and moved out. Documentarian Dean (played by Fleischer Camp) rents the house from AirBnB after his own breakup, and decides to make a film about Marcel’s daily life and his distinctive view of the world. 

While coloring way outside the lines of the original premise, the film version of Marcel is true to its roots, and it actually incorporates the shorts into the cinematic narrative quite inventively, as Marcel becomes an internet sensation in this reality sort of the same way he did in ours over a decade ago.

In a larger sense, though, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a quest film, with the quest in this case being Marcel’s dogged determination to find his lost family. Along the way, the film manages to weave in some truly profound commentary on parasocial relationships and the illusion of connectedness that comes from social media. And far from overstaying its welcome, by the time the credits started rolling at around the 80-minute mark, I found myself wanting it to go on, wanting at least another half hour with this adorable character and his defiantly optimistic outlook despite the profound sadness of his circumstances.

The film also understandably looks a little more professional than the low-budget DIY originals, but I dig the fact that live-action director of photography Bianca Cline and stop-motion director of photography Eric Adkins managed to evoke the look of the shorts without aping them. There’s also a lot more inventive camerawork on display here, but rather than being showy, it all sort of aids buying into the reality of this wholly unbelievable scenario.

The film was shot on a combination of older Alexa digital cameras with rehoused Nikon still-photography lenses and Canon EOS R mirrorless bodies, and it looks like a bit of film-look processing has been applied to add a touch of faux grain and mute some of the contrasts. It was finished in a 4K digital intermediate at an odd aspect ratio of 1.55:1.

Light plays a big role in the film—both narratively and cinematically—and while none of it is eye-reactive, the HDR10 grade of Kaleidescape’s download presents it beautifully. Little motes of dust suspended in sunbeams throughout the film pop a bit more than they would in standard dynamic range, and although the imagery has an intentionally soft look, the combination of the expanded value scale and the enhanced resolution of UHD gives the whole thing a wonderfully textured look. The only flaws are two very brief instances of banding that may or may not have been baked into the original footage.

The Kaleidescape version also comes with a surprisingly aggressive Dolby Atmos mix that somehow manages to work. The surround channels are nearly constantly active, especially early in the film, and the utterly brilliant score by Richard Vreeland (aka Disasterpeace) expands upward into the height channels at every appropriate opportunity. I would normally hate any Atmos mix that throws as much sound around the room as this one does, but it’s always perfectly in proportion with the images onscreen and never distracts from the viewing experience. It’s simply further proof that sound mixers are finally figuring out how to fill this expanded sonic landscape without making a spectacle of it all.

Frankly, though, unless you’re specifically concentrating on the shape of the sound—say, for the purposes of a review—I doubt you’ll notice the technical particulars. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is such a compelling little film that anyone with a hint of tolerance for weirdness will get altogether lost in the experience. It’s refreshing to watch a movie that leans so hard into its adorableness without ignoring the difficulties we all face in life. It’s also a delightfully strange feeling to watch a film made with so much sincerity and so little cynicism. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but give the original shorts a watch if you haven’t seen them a dozen times already (you can find them on YouTube here, here, and here). If they resonate with you in the slightest, I think you’ll love the feature-length Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.