Sarah Snook has joined Jacki Weaver, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Magda Szubanski and Eric Bana in the voice cast of Adam Elliot’s stop-motion feature Memoir of a Snail.
As per Deadline, Snook will voice protagonist Grace Puddle, a lonely hoarder of ornamental snails who is addicted to romance novels.
The 1970s-set story picks up with Grace having her family unit ripped apart and being separated from her twin brother, leading to a spiral of anxiety and depression, which she soothes with an addiction to collecting snail ornaments. But suddenly her life is filled with colour and hope again when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman called Pinky, through which she starts to find her confidence and the courage to learn to love and let go of the things that clutter her home and her mind.
It is the first lead role in a feature animation for Snook, known for her roles in Succession and Run Rabbit Run.
Arenamedia is producing the film, with Liz Kearney serving as producer and Robert Connolly and Robert Patterson executive producing.
Memoir of a Snail received major production investment from Screen Australia and was developed and produced in association with VicScreen, with financial support from Soundfirm, Mind the Gap Finance, Jameker, and the Melbourne International Film Festival Premiere Fund.
Production took place Docklands Studio with a team including DOP Gerald Thompson, editor Bill Murphy, and animation technical director John Lewis, all of whom worked on Elliot’s previous stop-motion feature Mary and Max.
The Paris-based Charades and the London-based Anton have partnered on worldwide sales and are set to show a new promo at this month’s European Film Market. Madman has the ANZ distribution rights.
Elliot, whose previous work also includes the Oscar-winning 2004 stop-motion short Harvie Krumpet, told VicScreen last year that the story was partially inspired by his real-life mother, who has featured in all his films to date.
“The reason is, I think my mum’s a very funny person, but she doesn’t actually know she’s funny, and we don’t want her to know she’s funny, because then she might stop being funny,” he said.
“It’s also based on a friend of mine, who was born with a severe cleft palate and had a lot of operations, especially as a child, on her lip. So, I’ve sort of amalgamated a lot of their stories into one.”