The Wild Robot will almost certainly be my favorite animated film of 2024, not to mention one of my favorite films to play Fantastic Fest 2024.
Both broadly entertaining for kids and families, and a nuanced and sweeping sci-fi epic, The Wild Robot evokes comparisons to such masterful work as Wall-E on the one hand or Silent Running or Blade Runner on the other.
Roz (Lupita Nyong’o continues to prove limitless) is already crash landed on a lush island that feels Pacific Northwest-ish when we meet her. She is activated and begins wandering the wilderness attempting to establish a directive, as is her wont as a service robot created by mega corporation Universal Dynamics. In glorious “show not tell” fashion, we come to learn about Roz’s situation, her setting, and who she is right alongside her. Endearing, smart, and silly from the outset, The Wild Robot quickly introduces us to the primary forest creatures that will become central to the story and Roz’s quest for purpose and meaning via the completion of service tasks. Pedro Pascal’s outcast and wily Fink The Fox initially looks to take advantage of Roz as a meal ticket but soon becomes entangled in the raising of little Brightbill (Kit Conner), a runt goose that Roz becomes a mother figure for after she accidentally crushes the nest of his family when he’s still just an egg. With Brightbill acquired, Roz has a programmed task to complete, and we’re off to the races to get Brightbill learning how to swim and fly in time for migration.
Incredibly blunt about the stakes in the wilderness, The Wild Robot is a kids film that isn’t afraid to address life’s fragility, and the miracle of survival against all odds. It’s clear in writer/director Chris Sanders’ script (adapted from Peter Brown’s book series) that Brightbill’s very life is at stake and no bones are made about the animal kingdom’s cutthroat nature. The Wild Robot is also a story of outcasts, with a friendless fox, a feared robot, and a runt unlike any of his fellow geese, the forged family of our trio of leads know deeply the feelings of rejection and isolation that can come when community turns its back on you. They’ll have ups and downs, but they’ll work together to survive, and it’ll be their differences and disabilities that ultimately make them the only heroes who can save the forest when the threats of unsurvivable winters and nefarious future tech threaten their habitat and their survival.
Initially limited exclusively to the (absolutely jaw-droppingly gorgeously rendered in wildly colorful animation) island at first, eventually the film pulls back to show us the wider world and this is when The Wild Robot begins to sell itself as a powerful work of science fiction that has something to say not only about family, parenthood, and adolescence, but also about society and technology and how we steward our world. It’s subtle for a kids movie, but The Wild Robot does imply a future for humankind that we may be careening towards rather than swerving away from. And it helps that the stately and magnificent Bill Nighy shows up as Longneck, the goose leader who will offer Brightbill the chance to fly or die.
I spend a lot of time watching, writing about, and pursuing cinema that celebrates empathy and The Wild Robot will no doubt be one of my favorite films of 2024 not only because it is a deeply compassionate and kind film, but because it’s not afraid to lay bare the stakes for not embracing kindness. Indeed, a central premise of the film is that kindness is a survival skill and it does a fantastic job of subtly reminding us viewers that this skill isn’t only key to our characters’ survival, but for society as well. It’s bizarre to live in a time where simple kindness and self-sacrificial love are revolutionary concepts that feel antithetical to the societal norm, but nevertheless here we are, and The Wild Robot offers somewhat of a countercultural narrative to the masses as a result. Roz, Brightbill, and Fink are a loveable family of misfits that I would gladly follow across multiple stories, though Wild Robot succeeds entirely on its own as a standalone film if future entries don’t manifest. It’s heartwarming and heart rending in equal measure as parents and children will both find much to relate to in that endless cycle of preparing our next generations to fly the nest and build something better than what has come before. In Roz, Brightbill, Fink, and Chris Sanders I trust.
And I’m Out.
