Australian animation feature film “Memoirs of a Snail” is deeply melancholic but also undeniably humorous and touching. While often being quite sad and moody just like its heroine throughout the story, the film also shows a lot of wit, style, and heart as her life somehow goes on with some unexpected moments of comfort and happiness, and it is certainly one of the best animation films of this year.

The story begins with the death of an old lady named Pinky (voiced by Jacki Weaver), who has been the best friend to a woman named Grace Pudel (voiced by Sarah Snook) during last several years. Now being left alone inside her house filled with a number of pet snails and many other things, Grace comes to feel sadder and lonelier than before, and that is how she comes to reflect on how her life has been frequently filled with a lot of sadness and loneliness for many years.

During her childhood years, Grace grew up along with her twin brother under their widower father after their mother died not long after their birth. Although their father was not exactly a very good father, he tried his best for earning the living for him and his two kids before becoming a paraplegic due to an unfortunate accident, and young Grace (voiced by Charlotte Belsey) and her brother Gilbert (voiced by Mason Litsos and then Kodi Smit-McPhee later in the story) always had each other despite their rather imperfect life environment.

Sadly, Grace and Gilbert subsequently get separated from each other when their father unexpectedly dies. Now becoming orphans, they are respectively sent to different foster homes, and Grace comes to live along with an eccentric couple who is often too self-absorbed to pay real attention to Grace despite being well-intentioned at times. Needless to say, Grace comes to miss her twin brother more, and she and Gilbert are often consoled by the letters exchanged between them during next several years.

However, Gilbert is sent to the foster parents who are much worse than Grace’s. Gilbert’s foster parents, who incidentally run an apple orchard in addition to being your average hypocritical Christian fanatics, already have several other foster kids, and these kids and Gilbert are constantly abused and exploited by this deplorable couple day by day. As communicating with his twin sister more and more during next several years, Gilbert hopes to escape from his horrible foster parents as soon as possible, but the possibility of escape seems beyond his reach, and his situation becomes all the more desperate when his foster parents later come to find something of which they do not approve at all.

The story is indeed very sad, dark, and depressing to say the least, but the film sometimes shows some sense of humor from time to time while filling the screen with the engaging qualities of its distinctive clay animation style. Many characters in the story are presented as simple and broad figures, but they are imbued with each own colorful human personality, and the film even features not only a bit of nudity but also some sexual perversion (It is rated for R in US for good reasons, by the way).

Moreover, the film is constantly filled with small and big details to be observed and cherished. As Grace becomes more introverted during her following young adult years, her little residence is filled with numerous things and stuffs as shown from the beginning of the film, and you will admire more of the painstaking efforts from director/writer Adma Elliot and his crew, who all surely worked a lot on every frame of their film.

Above all, the story works as a moody but sensitive coming-of-age tale. Although she often gets mired in despair and misery in one way or another, Grace is usually supported and comforted a lot by Pinky, who gladly takes Grace under her wing after their accidental encounter and helps Grace coming out of her shell a bit more than before. Around the end of the story, Pinky comes to help Grace again even after her death, and we are reminded more of the value of kindness and compassion.

The voice cast members of the film are solid in their respective roles. Young performers Charlotte Belsey and Mason Listos are flawlessly connected with their respective adult counterparts, and Sarah Snook and Kodi Smit-McPhee are supported well by a bunch of colorful voice cast members including Eric Bana, Dominique Pinon, Tony Armstrong, Nick Cave, and Jacki Weaver, who always lightens up the mood whenever her lovable character appears on the screen.

On the whole, “Memoir of a Snail” is simply unforgettable as deftly balancing itself among humor, melancholy, and sincerity, and Elliot, who won a Best Short Animation Film Oscar for “Harvie Krumpet” (2003), gives another powerful work to remember after his previous animation feature film “Mary and Max” (2009), which I incidentally chose as one of the best films in 2010. As a guy diagnosed to be on the autism spectrum, its sensitive and poignant story about the unlikely friendship between a young girl and an older autistic guy came quite close to me, and I still remember how much I was moved around the end of that animation film. In case of “Memoir of a Snail”, both I and a friend of mine were touched a lot in the end, and I was not surprised at all when he told me later that he felt the need to call his sister right now. Yes, this is a really wonderful animation film, and you should check it out as soon as possible.