The Wild Robot is the latest animated output from DreamWorks Animation, the studio that gave us the How to Train Your Dragon series, the Shrek series, and the Madagascar series. Directed by Chris Sanders, the film is a lovely adaptation of a book series by Peter Brown, featuring a heart-warming tale about growing up, parenting and embracing one’s identity.

The film opens with an epilepsy-inducing thunderstorm, which becomes the cause of a cargo ship crash-landing on an island. Among the wreckage is a utilitarian robot (Lupita Nyong’o) who calls herself ‘Roz’ upon being activated by the local wildlife. It is through Roz that we learn that we are in the future, where robots are commonplace in households and help out with a variety of tasks including farming, cleaning, educating, and many more. Unfortunately for Roz, she stumbles upon an array of wildlife and struggles to communicate with them her eagerness to perform tasks and fulfil their needs, prompting her to go into a ‘learning mode’ where she hibernates and learns all the animal languages through observation and deduction.

Despite her efforts, Roz fails to find an assignment. While contacting her manufacturer to pick her up, Roz suffers from an accident and inadvertently destroys a goose nest, killing the mother and all the eggs except one. Enter Fink the fox (Pedro Pascal), who steals the egg for food but is stopped by Roz in time. Upon hatching, the gosling imprints itself on Roz and stalks her as he believes her to be his mother. Roz ends up in an impossible task to raise the gosling and prepare him to leave the island for his winter migration. An unlikely camaraderie forms between Roz and Fink during the herculean task of parenting the gosling (Kit Connor).

The Wild Robot is an emotional and heartwarming story about age-old themes like growing up and embracing who you are to grow beyond your perceived limits. Taking inspiration from a long line of films, especially Pixar classics like A Bug’s Life, Wall-E, and Monsters Inc., the film blends familiar elements with new sensibilities. The result is a heartfelt story that is fit for an audience of all ages – children and the parents who accompany them, with both learning valuable lessons along the way. Although I have minor reservations about one of the film’s themes that becomes prevalent during the third act and its practicality within the film’s setting, I find the rest of the film absolutely charming. At its best, the film tugs on my heart strings and moves me completely. The sequence leading up to the breath-taking migration scene, in particular, is a tear-jerker, and I find myself struggling to keep from sobbing as tears stream down my cheeks.

I personally like the omission of humans from the film. Although unspecified, the film hints at a history of catastrophic environmental disasters as we see shots of the Golden Gate Bridge submerged underwater, the visuals calling to mind the film Ponyo by Hayao Miyazaki. On the island free from humans, the wildlife is thriving, yet they are not exempt from a worsening snowstorm that is set to obliterate all life on the island. The presence of humans is felt even without a single human character or a full shot of humans in the film. This allows the film to draw from the juxtaposition between the cold metallic robot and the warmth of the natural wildlife, moving towards a symphonic balance at the end.

Visually, the film is stunning. With robot designs that hark back to Miyazaki’s Laputa and the watercolour art styles that DreamWorks have perfected over the last few years, the film is a visual feast. The sumptuous artwork, the fluid animation, and the highly impressionistic landscape, though owing a great debt to the revolution that Sony’s Spider-Man animated films brought about in the industry in the past few years, are truly triumphs of their own. Paired with the vibrant colours is a spectacular score by Kris Bowers, a first-time animated film composer. The score soars and carries the viewers along an emotional ride, with an emotional climax punctuated by an original song performed by Maren Morris: “Kiss the Sky”.

Lupita Nyong’o is layered in her performance as the cold robot, Roz, who eventually finds her heart as she learns to be a parent. The ensemble cast is effective, but the standout performance for me is Stephanie Hsu’s as the evil robot Vontra who is tasked to bring back Roz at all costs. Though brief in screentime, Hsu’s performance is immediately memorable, perfecting the fine line between being cheerfully evil and menacingly charming, depending on how you look at it.

All in all, The Wild Robot is an emotional whirlwind, one that effectively takes inspiration from its predecessors and blends them into a heartfelt coming-of-age tale, with a dash of visual splendour and a wonderful soundtrack. It is the animated film of the year for me, so far.

Author: Chia Jing Heng (andreusjh99)