As a small child, motherless Grace started keeping snails in a jar, writing names on their shells and watching their life cycle — mate, breed, die — with loving fascination. “They were my friends,” she muses in voiceover in Memoir of a Snail, which this week had its premiere at the Annecy International Animation Festival. “I knew they’d never leave me, hurt me — or die.” Moments before, we saw Gracie’s huge ovoid eyes, spill over with tears as the aged Pinkie, her only human companion, breathed her final death rattle. “I’m so alone,” says Grace, not for the first time. “Goddamn life! Such a stupid, stupid puzzle!”

Pathos laid on with a shovel, you may be thinking — but you would be wrong. Following 2009’s Mary and Max, Memoir of a Snail is only the second Claymation feature from Australia’s Adam Elliot, who won an Oscar for his short...