“Memoir of a Snail” Is a Slow Spiral Into Despair

Yet it keeps marching forward

“Life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards.”

This is the mantra that underlines the entirety of Memoir of a Snail, a deceptively depressing stop-motion film that chronicles the misfortune of a woman throughout her childhood and young adult life. It’s a parade of despair that constantly eclipses itself, and hope only presents itself through reflection. The film declares that we might only be able to understand our experiences in retrospect, but the promise of future revelation is what will keep us going.

The clay takes on the minatory charm of Edward Gorey, brought to life to enact the never-ending misery that befalls Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook). After her mother dies during childbirth, she and her twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), are left to care for their paraplegic father, battling myriad threats from his alcoholism to school bullies. But when he dies in his sleep, they are forced into separate foster families — Grace is sent to a kind couple who often abandon her in favor of swinging, and Gilbert is subjected to the abuse of the matriarch of a fundamentalist family who operate a church and rural apple orchard. 

As Grace’s life becomes increasingly grim, she turns to hoarding snail-related items, spending all she can on her obsession and eventually resorting to theft. Her comfort slowly turns to entrapment, and she, much like a snail, is insulated and burdened by an ever-looming weight always over her shoulders. 

But while it seems like Grace is forever trapped within a snail’s spiral, the calamity of her story is never used to rationalize pessimism. Instead, Memoir of a Snail’s ethos is patient and sympathetic — the beauty may be invisible now, but the promise of its future presence is an incentive to keep going. There is a simple radiance to accepting a lack of clarity, exemplified by Pinky (Jacki Weaver), an eccentric woman who befriends Grace at the library and whose past includes playing ping pong with Fidel Castro and sex in a helicopter with John Denver. 

Pinky’s presence is what prevents the spiral from collapsing in on itself, a tangible expression of the triumph that persists alongside a lifetime of scars. The intensity of Memoir of a Snail’s cloudy and cluttered bleakness allows for a thorough enthusiasm in its a resolute march towards joy. The forward movement of time and emotion is uncompromising, and even if we can’t understand anything now, there’s beauty in knowing that there’s beauty ahead. 

OVERALL SCORE: 9/10

Memoir of a Snail was released on October 25 and is currently showing in U.S. theaters.