My Neighbor Totoro fans can find a familiar comfort in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

polygon.com:

Being small is difficult. Everything is out of reach, literally. It’s hard to see over bigger people and things. And forget being included in important conversations! In the quirky A24 movie Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, writer-director Dean Fleischer-Camp remembers what it’s like to be small better than most big people do. But as he, co-writers Elisabeth Holm and Nick Paley, and collaborator Jenny Slate remind the audience about childhood experiences, they bring in a sense of humor and a perspective that can only come from living in the big wide world.

Marcel (Jenny Slate), a 1-inch-tall shell with shoes and a face, may be a child. (He sounds like one, but his age is never revealed, and shells “don’t do the clock like you do,” as Marcel explains at one point.) He does live with his grandma Connie (Isabella Rossellini), a warmhearted gardener who came to the house from the garage. (Her faraway origins are meant to explain her accent.) They live on foraged raisins and droplets of water from a leaky bathroom faucet, and they bring patience and grace to the many challenges that come with their tiny stature. Their favorite show is60 Minutes, which they watch on a TV in a neighboring house while sitting on a couch made out of a hoagie roll.

Many “changings of the trees” ago, Connie and Marcel were part of a thriving community of pocket-sized individuals that also included Marcel’s mom, Catherine (Sarah Thyre), and dad, Mario (Andy Richter), as well as pretzels, pieces of cereal, pistachio shells, and a tampon with the face of a ghost. But most of the group was scooped up and carried away in a suitcase when the man and woman who used to live in their house argued, then left. In the wake of this disaster, Marcel and Connie