Hal Kitchen
Like all of us I think, I have complicated feelings towards Disney Animation Studios these days, or any studio really. One thing I have unreservedly positive feelings about though is their commitment to keeping the short film alive, giving their up and coming animators a chance to show off their tools and give audiences value for money with a short attached to each of their theatrical releases. It’s a tradition I should like to see upheld more often, there’s plenty of great short films out there that are seldom seen by mainstream audiences, distributors attaching them to appropriate features is a wonderful idea that used to be standard but has sadly fallen out of fashion. So yes, bravo Disney for keeping that up. Sometimes these shorts are so good they overshadow the film they’re attached to. I couldn’t tell you one thing that happened in Incredibles 2 but Bao, the incredibly touching short film that played before it earned itself a spot in my heart and allowed director Domee Shi to make her fabulous feature debut with Turning Red some years later. Lots of the most memorable of these shorts focus on small, self contained tales of animals in the wild with their parents, like Piper or Far From the Tree (another gem that outshone the attached Encanto). The Wild Robot, DreamWorks’s latest feature film, has a very similar tone and theme to these stories, feeling much like one of these shorts that had been expanded to feature length, though it is actually based on the book of the same name by Peter Brown.
The “Wild Robot” in question is Roz (played by Lupita Nyong’o in a fantastic piece of voice work) an artificially intelligent household servant bot that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and in stomping around looking for someone to serve, accidentally orphans a gosling (Kit Connors), whom she finds her purpose in raising when the little goose imprints on her, coming to recognize her as his mother. It’s a cute little tale but director Chris Sanders, known for co-directing modern classics like Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, digs deep into the material and with an astuteness that equals that of the very best Pixar efforts—for this kind of allegorical storytelling is usually their territory—finds the soul and spirit at the heart of the material, producing a truly tear-jerking story of the hurdles of parenthood and of the trials of life.
This central story, of the troubled parent-child bond that Roz and “Brightbill” form, is phenomenally well realized, often funny and extremely moving. Despite all the soaring music, I could still barely hear the climax over the sniffling and sobbing around me. It’s moving towards the inevitable Brother Bear moment where Brightbill finds out what happened to his original family, but the film digs deep enough that this moment is just a bump in the road of their relationship, and extremely well handled for all that. However, there’s a lot more going on in The Wild Robot, much of it equally terrific, some of it more haphazard and incongruous, story beats the film rushes to get to and then away from. The first two thirds are excellent but—much as Wall*e starts to lose people once it leaves Earth and becomes a more conventional adventure—once The Wild Robot starts to introduce outside conflict it also starts to feel like its losing sight of the heart that was sustaining it. I may feel differently on rewatches (and I’m sure I’ll be watching this again soon) as I used to feel similarly about Lilo & Stitch but no longer do. However, for now, I do think that that movie escalates the stakes much better than The Wild Robot does. That’s the trouble really, when you’ve got a yardstick that high, it’s Chris Sanders’s own fault really for making Lilo & Stitch so insurmountably good.
DreamWorks have always been at home with comedies and this is no exception. It’s just that as with their other best movies like Kung Fu Panda and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish the comedy is interleaved with strong characters, story and stunning animated action. The supporting cast is terrific as well though, with the likes of Catherine O’Hara, Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Ving Rhames, Matt Berry and Mark Hamill bringing warmth and humor to their animal roles. The focus may be on the story of Roz, her journey to break her programming and become more than an automaton, and on the beautifully rendered and detailed environments, but there’s a surprising wealth of humor to be found as well. The possum family are especially good value in this regard, getting most of the big laughs and the film as an often disarming frankness about the value of life in the wild, with some surprisingly dark jokes about death, which is present throughout The Wild Robot.
Some of the animals are a bit conventionally cutesy, but Roz is as exemplary an animated creation as Stitch or Toothless were. The design obviously has a lot of Miyazaki influence, she’s basically one of the guardians from Castle in the Sky, given a bit of a sleeker modern redesign, but the fine detail, the texture, the way she moves; she feels real and alive. Part of that is down to Nyong’o whose voice work is stellar (is there anything she can’t do?) and the nuanced quality of the writing, but the detail and well…animation, of her is superb, as are the environments. I’m sure there will be some adult viewers who will wish this movie was for them and had gone the more realistic route, foregone dialogue, no talking raccoons and such and just had it be a robot surviving on her own in the wilds without humans and learning from the plants and animals around her instead. I’m sure that could’ve been exceptional too, but the more practical all ages approach still has its own considerable merits. And the talking possums are funny.
Though it may not be quite as original a creation as it first appears, and the couple of original songs are admittedly as bland as one might fear, there’s undeniable depths to be found in The Wild Robot which should be more than sufficient to delight audience members of any age. The lovable and credibly nuanced characters are endearing and appealing enough that this might just earn its spot among the most beloved family movies of recent years. At the very least, I doubt many children will forget the emotional roller-coaster this will be in any hurry.
