A Love Letter to Non-Biological Parents: 'The Wild Robot' Movie Review
DreamWorks' The Wild Robot a 5/5 Masterpiece
The wild robot (based on a Peter Brown book) drops he viewer into a beautifully drawn, animated, lush woodland island. Our main character, Rozzum Unit 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o), crashes and awakes in an unknown environment. Conflict arises when only animals surround the robot, custom-designed to serve humans. No amount of new customer stickers slapped onto creatures can gain acceptance. Deemed a monster, Rozzum sits and meditates to seek a new purpose.
After a season has passed, reawakening now fluent in all animal tongues, a tragedy occurs. A now orphaned gosling imprints itself on her. They adopt alternative names: Rozzum Unit 7134 is now Roz, and the gosling takes Brightbill. Along with a crafty fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), their mission is to get the runt, Brightbill, ready for the upcoming migration.
Hidden within the storyline is a love letter to those who are non-biological parents. The process of going from stranger to raising someone is on full display. Showing the herculean task of motherhood, which starts with no instruction manual.
This movie weaves together multiple themes: the awkwardness a child experiences when peers shun them, the feeling of making parental mistakes that seem to ruin everything, dealing with rejection from children you raise, and the more significant lesson of working together with those perceived as enemies.
Memorable line: Pinktail the opossum (Catherine O’Hara) to her children, “the dead don’t have to explain themselves.”
Director Chris Sanders has surpassed expectations by combining high-level animation with prominent and memorable personalities from even the smallest woodland creatures. Smashing the recycled formula for animated stories, Pixar currently makes. Dreamworks has delivered a worthy successor to Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon.