If you feel like filling up your cup, without too much cloying sentimentality, I recommend Memoir of a Snail by Australian Adam Elliott.

If you’ve seen Mary and Max (2009) or the short Harvie Krumpet (2003), you’ll be familiar with Elliot’s quirky, grubby claymation and his ability to tackle dark themes in a way that is both whimsical and heartfelt. 

With Memoir of a Snail, we see the story of twins Gilbert (Kody Smit-McPhee) and Grace (Sarah Snook) who have “two souls but one heart.” Grace narrates her history to an unseen Silvia and we see their birth, the trials and tribulations of their childhood amidst a beautifully rendered Melbourne, in fact not just Melbourne but Collingwood and Fitzroy just a few hundred metres from where I was seeing the film.

This is in many ways a tragedy as Gilbert and Grace are cast into the dark storms of the foster system when they lose their parents. Not only are they separated but Gilbert is sent to Western Australia to live with a religious family of apple growers (all shame and neglect) and Grace is sent to Canberra (all square corners and neat edges).

Running through the story is a metaphor of snails, something that Grace is obsessed with, inherited from her malacologist mother and serving to keep her safe and oriented in a world that is chaotic and traumatic. There are some wonderful characters, in particular Pinky (Jacki Weaver) the octogenarian who befriends Grace when she is at her most alone and has lived a wonderful life full of adventure and optimism.

Every frame is full of rich and humorous detail and it’s the kind of film that you could watch over and over again just to pick up the little jokes and references and beautiful minutiae. There are some famous people voicing the characters, although this is not something that is particularly apparent as we watch it. I picked up Magda Szubanski as Gilbert’s evil foster mother Ruth but didn’t recognise Nick Cave as one of Pinky’s hapless husbands or Eric Bana as James the Magistrate.

I think what Elliot succeeds at is showing us the terrible realities of life – abuse, neglect, hoarding and depression – but underpins it with a warm confidence in the humanity of people. I think we should all live lives a bit more like Pinky, as she says, “Life can only be understood backwards, but we have to live it forwards.”