More than animation: The Wild Robot touches the soul

One thing in advance: there are no spoilers in this review. I won’t be mentioning anything that hasn’t already been revealed in the trailers.

It’s one of the most violent storms ever to hit the deserted island. Dark clouds cover the sky, wind lashes across the land at incredible speeds. Waves crash against the rocky coast with tremendous force – but Roz, a robot, doesn’t let it get her down. True, she doesn’t know how she got here.

But she knows what her job is. One prime directive: to help.

However, the animals that inhabit the island aren’t looking for help. The opposite, in fact. They hunt, eat, fight – anything to survive. «Didn’t any of you order me?» Roz asks at one point. She’s alone. Confused. Damaged.

«Yes, I did,» I think to myself as I soak up the spectacular images conjured by DreamWorks Animation with teary eyes. I didn’t even know I wanted this until a few minutes ago. 102 minutes later, I know that The Wild Robot isn’t just one of the best animated films of the year, but one of the best films of the year. Period.

What’s The Wild Robot about?

Rozzum 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o) – Roz for short – is no ordinary robot. She was actually developed to help humans in a futuristic urbanised world. But before she reaches her intended recipient, she’s shipwrecked. The island where she’s stranded couldn’t be more unforgiving. Hunting and devouring, the animal world fights for survival following its base instincts.

«Kindness isn’t a survival strategy,» Roz is later told.

To make matters worse, a storm on the island causes the death of an entire family of geese – except for one unharmed egg. Caring for the orphan that hatches from it becomes Roz’s new task. She has to teach it to eat, swim and fly so that it can later escape the winter with its fellow geese and migrate west. But how on earth is she, a robot, supposed to do that?

Heart and humour: how The Wild Robot captivates its audience

«I’m not programmed for it,» says a helpless Roz, as the little gosling chooses the metal droid – the first creature the chick sees – as its new mother. «Nobody is,» replies a mother possum, voiced by Catherine O’Hara. She’s desperately trying to look after her own seven children too. «You just acquire them – then you improvise your way through.»

In the cinema screening for journalists, it’s not just the parents laughing. It feels miraculous; people never really laugh during press screenings. After all, you have to remain professional. The Wild Robot does everything it can to break through this professionalism. Successfully. Very much so, even.

In fact, it’s above all these small, subtle conversations with which The Wild Robot effortlessly and repeatedly hits our emotional core. Sometimes it hurts, other times your heart’s almost heavy with happiness. And then – inevitably – comes the all-encompassing, healing catharsis that breaks your last bit of self-control. Not bringing a handkerchief to the press screening was a mistake that almost every guest regretted.

And yet, The Wild Robot certainly had the potential to do a lot wrong. Plenty, even, since the animated film wants to cover a lot of topics and tell a story at the same time. Something like this can quickly overload lesser films, ending up unfocused and half-baked. Too many cooks, as they say.

Been there, seen that.

But The Wild Robot never seems overloaded. Not even for a second. Each topic flows organically into the next. It starts off with the question of belonging. This is in stark contrast to the purely instinctual island at the start, where everyone wants to eat and kill each other. Speaking of which, dear parents: be prepared to explain Darwinism to your children. Nothing is glossed over in The Wild Robot; death is also part of life.

After this, The Wild Robot slowly and subtly transforms into a parental parable about love and letting go, as Roz, the chick and a fox voiced by Pedro Pascal form a patchwork family. And as the gosling Brightbill grows older, coming-of-age elements are gradually introduced as he has to learn to find his way in a world that has neither waited for him nor wants him. None of it seems out of place or too much of a good thing.

«He’s found where he belongs,» Roz says with bittersweet joy and sadness halfway through the movie, as her erstwhile gosling swims to a group of geese for the first time.

Roz’s metal face shows no emotion, but the subtle changes in her voice – perfectly conveyed by Lupita Nyong’o – allow us to feel how Roz gradually evolves beyond her original empathy-free programming. This vocal nuance strikes deep – and once again threatens to overwhelm my emotions.

Of visual poetry and overwhelming beauty

Veteran animator Chris Sanders directed The Wild Robot, which is based on the children’s novel of the same name by Peter Brown. Brown probably couldn’t have wished for a better adaptation – or at least no one who could’ve done it better than the 62-year-old Sanders. A quick look at his impressive filmography shows how experienced he is.

Sanders first made a name for himself in the Writers’ Room at Disney, where he was involved in developing classics such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Mulan. He made his directorial debut with Lilo & Stitch before moving to DreamWorks Animation. He landed a smash hit there with How to Train Your Dragon, followed by The Croods. Sanders then devoted himself exclusively to working on sequels to his films for a while, without directing them himself. With The Wild Robot, he now returns to the director’s chair – delivering his best work to date.

I’m just going to say that. You can’t convince me otherwise.

Because The Wild Robot isn’t only incredibly well written and acted by its talented voice cast, including Bill Nighy, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames and Mark Hamill. The animation also simply looks breathtakingly beautiful. Impressionistic and picturesque at the same time. Like a Monet painting with ray tracing and 3D effects. Sounds bizarre, but it’s really half of what makes the movie what it is.

It seems Chris Sanders is following the trend towards modern, experimental forms of expression characterised by Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse at the latest. For the first time, Hollywood was no longer trying to imitate the flawless animation of Disney or Pixar. Instead, the American animation houses looked for their own, unmistakeable styles.

The often underrated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, for example, heralded this change at DreamWorks Animation in 2022. The Wild Robot continues this development.

And as if all that wasn’t enough of a package deal, composer Kris Bowers contributes one of the most beautiful scores of the whole year. Emotional, scary and drifting, all in one. What more could my movie heart want?