It's not your typical stop-motion film when characters name pets after Sylvia Plath and read ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' — or when the story's inspired by a quote from existentialist thinker Søren Kierkegaard.
And it's certainly not your typical stop-motion film when you find yourself crying as much as the characters do — in their case, with huge droplets leaking from bulging, egg-shaped eyes so authentic-looking, you expect the screen to get wet.
But those are just a few of the unique things about Adam Elliot's ''Memoir of a Snail,'' a film that's as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint.
One thing Elliot's film is not, though, is for kids. So please take note before heading to the multiplex with family in tow: this film earns its R rating, as you'll discover as soon as young Grace, voiced by Sarah Snook, tells us she thought masturbation was about chewing your food properly. Sex, nudity, drunk driving, a fat fetish — like we said, it's R-rated for a reason.
But let's start at the beginning. In this, his seventh ''clayography'' (for ''clay'' and ''biography''), the Australian writer-director explores the process of collecting unnecessary objects. Otherwise known as hoarding, it's something that weighs us down in ways we can't see, for all the clutter. Elliot also argues that it helps us build constrictive shells around ourselves — like snail shells, perhaps.
Our protagonist is Grace Pudel, voiced with a quirky warmth and plenty of empathy by the wonderfully agile Snook. We first encounter Grace as a grown woman, telling her long, lonely life story to her pet garden snail, Sylvia (named after Plath), at a moment of deep sadness.
Then we flash back to childhood. Grace is born with a twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Their mother dies in childbirth, leaving the twins with their father, a film animator. Grace needs surgery to correct a cleft palate, and doctors ask young Gilbert to donate blood; he thinks that means he'll have to die to let her live, and still says yes. (Those tears we mentioned? They start here.)
The two siblings endure a sad life with their father, a life that becomes sadder yet when a collision with a drunk driver renders him a paraplegic. It won't be long before their father dies in his sleep, making them orphans. And nobody wants a full set of twins, so Grace and Gilbert are forcibly separated and sent to opposite sides of Australia.