I have just seen the film I will nominate for this year’s Hugo award in the category Best Dramatic Presentation, long-form.
It was a relatively rare expedition of the whole family to the cinema-my eldest daughter now has her own apartment and lives independently from the rest of us. Last year we had a teenage lodger from the US who was doing an internship at our church. He shared a love of animated films with my youngest daughter, who hence acquired a younger brother. His dad is a professional animator, and my daughter has a degree in animation—though is now concentrating on her Sci-Fi online comic. So, The Wild Robot, was our American friend’s recommendation, and we went to the Swedish premiere last night.
From the get-go, there was both laughter and tears, not only from those sitting closest to me but the whole cinema. It knocked recent Disney/Pixar Sci-Fi efforts out of the park—and for me recaptured the heyday of Pixar, before their union with Disney and the need for endless sequels to keep the money rolling in. The voice acting was spot on—we saw the English-language version, not the Swedish one. As a family, we try to see films in their original languages, with subtitles if necessary.
I don’t want to say much about the plot as it’s best to experience it firsthand, but from the promotional material surrounding the film you will glean that it’s about a service robot that is misdelivered to a remote island consisting only of wild animals. The animals are portrayed (at least in the beginning) with their normal interactions of predator and prey, rather than with a cutesy Disney sheen. And thus, quite a lot of the humour has a dark edge. Particular family favourites were the possum and her brood, the robot herself, an overambitious beaver and a slightly morally ambiguous fox—whose earnest and prolonged efforts to eat one of the central characters launches the film. There’s a lot that probably goes over the head of younger children. Afterwards, we discussed its suitability for this younger age group due to the multiple deaths (even in the first few minutes), but I reminded everyone that Bambi’s mother gets shot at the beginning of that supposedly very child friendly film—promoting, at least in my family, tears from the youngest—and without the tonic humour that The Wild Robot brings.
Behind the scenes, the mind behind, for example, How to Train your Dragon, shows that along with the recent Spiderman animations, exciting creativity is now found outside of the Disney/Pixar nest. The art was vivid, painterly, and like all great animation films, a character in its own right. It is a bit of a contrast with the other animation series I’ve been watching with my animator daughter (Arcane) which also combines great art with superb animation and storytelling for a more adult audience.
I recognised but couldn’t immediately identify the voice actors like Lupita Nygong’o, Pedro Pascal and various Brits like Bill Nighy, who were revealed in the end credits. In keeping with the recent Marvel tradition, there is a brief final scene after all the credits have rolled out. Actually, with an animator daughter, it’s a ploy I applaud, as you get to see the vast human team that has contributed to make this ‘computer’ animation. But that’s a gripe for another blog. Perhaps, I will combine this with my biggest disappointment of the last Star Wars trilogy, which was that Lupita’s character, Maz, was largely missing from the films following the Force Awakens… Well, at least The Wild Robot, gave her the opportunity to take central stage with another animated character, and shine.
