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The Wild Robot is a Rare Display of Original, Dignified Studio Animation

In the modern sphere of American studio animation, in which brand recognition either by specific franchises or standardized pandering style dominates with no end in sight, a movie like The Wild Robot is a breath of fresh air. It belongs to that dying breed of genuine originality in that medium; though it most likely would not have been produced at all if not for the track record of its director Chris Sanders, who co-directed one of  the best acclaimed post-Renaissance Disney movies (Lilo & Stitch), and one of the best DreamWorks movies period (How to Train Your Dragon). And The Wild Robot sees him back at DreamWorks to deliver for them perhaps their last great original movie.
It’s the fairly nifty story of an advanced robot crash-landing on Earth in a dense boreal forest wilderness where in efforts to abide by her programming to serve and complete tasks, she accidentally kills a goose and crushes all but one of her eggs. After the gosling hatches and imprints on her she determines to fulfil the new task of mothering the child, whom she names Brightbill, until he's capable of flying and joining his own kind, alongside a fox without friends or family of his own.
Lupita Nyong’o voices the robot, who eventually calls herself Roz -her second survival story of 2024- bringing a sense of earnest curiosity, intelligence, and even warmth and humour to the part of an automoton stranded among wildlife, initially unable to process anything in a way that would deviate from her programming. She is designed in a friendly way, but Sanders and his team don’t lean into the forceful cute in the way of Big Hero 6 or even WALL-E -beyond of course the wide eyes capable of conveying just enough of the emotion Roz learns to develop, albeit still in an understated way.
And that neutrality is a good starting position for what’s ultimately a really charming story of motherhood -a story that spans birth up to leaving home, and in a short period of time all of the complications and feelings that come out of that. And it does do the usual family movie thing of slyly commenting in broad platitudes (notably from a possum mother voiced by Catherine O’Hara), but it gets to the depths of the theme as well, and in surprisingly potent, heartfelt ways.
The movie does draw on a fairly clear collection of influences: the broad strokes of Roz’s design evoke the similarly wild robot of Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky, while the aforementioned WALL-E certainly plays some part in the film’s image of humanity’s future. But it’s most vivid sources are seemingly The Iron Giant and Bambi, the former in its tale of a robot becoming more than its programming and the latter in its grounded, coming-of-age forest parable -there is in fact a deer with a striking resemblance to Bambi. And it somehow captures the most resonating aspects of both. Like in Bambi, there is a harshness to the movie that goes underwritten; the food chain stuff as a joke of course, but also the way the movie conveys death as something always in reach, to the point it has greater power. The transformative experience of raising a child and eventually letting them go is articulated with striking maturity for a movie in which a robot and a fox co-parent a goose. But it taps quite openly and acutely into both the difficulties and earnest emotionality of being a parent; and the visual symbolism that goes along with that journey is very vivid and beautiful. At one point to protect Brightbill, irrespective of the danger posed to her, she literally gives him the place of her "heart".
The theme of ‘being defective’, a recurring one in Sanders’ movies, hits on multiple levels here. The orphaned Brightbill, voiced in maturity by Kit Connor, was the runt of his family, Fink the fox (Pedro Pascal) is an outcast; but Roz who perhaps most notably doesn’t belong in this environment, also soon learns that just by adapting and overwriting her conditioning for survival, she is an aberration of her kind. And there's a cruel sting to the way she receives such information so coldly and dispassionately. Already a movie that loves and legitimises non-traditional family structures, it proves a strong and resonating illustration of how rejection from and disillusionment with in-groups drive the formation of those structures. Ultimately Roz becomes only more invested in and compassionate towards the creatures she shares the forest with -many of whom are also seen to be loners disconnected from their kin.
DreamWorks has been experimenting with more artful animation styles for a little while now, most notably in The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, but The Wild Robot eclipses them both in terms of its rich and unique design. With no American studio producing traditional animation anymore, Sanders like many of his contemporaries seems resolved to come as close as he can to replicating it within the 3D format. In taking visual cues from movies like Bambi, the animators here employ a painterly design to the landscapes and environmental architecture, with deep shadows and expressionist textures. The style extends to characters too; animals that are not so intricately hyper-detailed as might be found in Pixar -as though crafted by brush-stroke rather than computer input, which aligns them on better footing with the chromic sheen of Roz, marking a further subtle link between them. It is merely an aesthetic technique of course but it makes a difference on the movie's ability to resonate. There is character to the colours and the design choices here not found in the obnoxious, sterile looks of virtually all the upcoming animated movies advertised in the trailers in front of this film.
The ending is notably weak compared to the rest, a rare case of Sanders holding back from what would be narratively fulfilling for what is emotionally cathartic and quite honestly, safe. It feels a bit awkward too in light of the circumstances developed in the last act -which in general has some slogging beats, particularly Brightbill’s journey to the human world. But the impression the movie leaves is still very strong. In the animation climate that The Wild Robot is made in, it inevitably goes to those tired wells of condescending cuteness, cynical pop needle-drops, and quip-style humour a few times; the movie can't as a whole be as sincere as its greatest moments. But those great moments really do count for something, and reflect the wider themes and tone, creativity and artistry that are prioritized on this charming and tender movie -a comforting, humble outlier in a sorrowful sea.

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