by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Lupita Nyong’o, Kit Connor, Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Mark Hamill, Ving Rhames, Catherine O’Hara
Intro:
... a wild ride from start to finish, whether it’s getting hearts to race, break, or gently stir.
Focusing on the titular robot Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) as she searches for her assigned task amongst the woodland critters of the island she crash-landed in, The Wild Robot plays out like a maternal spin on The Iron Giant. There’s the comparable character design, sure, but also the fascinating exploration of identity, with Roz eventually becoming the carer of an orphaned gosling (Kit Connor), alongside trickster fox Fink (Pedro Pascal in full Cool Dad mode).
The extent to which Chris Sanders’ script is brutal in its honesty about the realities of parenthood ensures that adults in the audience have something to relate to (and possibly break out into hives about), while the animation… honestly, this film should come with a pre-showing health warning. Warning: Attempts to lunge at the screen may result in personal injury. As adorable as the animals (and robot) are, you cannot physically hug them… yet. It’s beautifully visualised, taking inspiration from the natural splendour normally found in the Studio Ghibli catalogue, and Sanders’ direction actually lets that beauty stand on its own rather than overload it with chatter; always good to see a family-friendly film that acknowledges and welcomes maturity.
Well, that and tears, as Roz’s journey of self-discovery, motherhood, and connection with the natural world is highly likely to cause hearts to runneth over. As many ideas as it reaches for, The Wild Robot never leaves any of them until they have been sufficiently tapped for raw emotive fuel. It’s genuinely impressive that Roz manages something that parents struggle with – not being defined solely as a parent. Her outsider perspective combined with adaptability and improvisation are neurodivergent-coded (doubly so for the gosling as he grows up), and she serves as the nucleus for an even larger discussion about the fears of technology and the nature coming into contact. For a talking animal movie, the environmentalism on display is remarkably subtle, serving more as an undercurrent to the primary tale about knowing which instincts are worth sticking to, and which bits of programming are worth bypassing, for all our sakes.
The Wild Robot is a wild ride from start to finish, whether it’s getting hearts to race, break, or gently stir. It looks amazing, sounds amazing (Kris Bowers’s score Does. Not. Miss!), and with the size of its emotional upload, it’ll make viewers feel just as amazing throughout. It shows a level of warmth and care within mainstream family-friendly animation that is a joy.
