London Film Festival 2024 – The Wild Robot ★★★★★

Released: 18th October 2024

Director: Chris Sanders

Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Catherine O’Hara & Mark Hamill

“On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate my performance?” says Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), short for ROZZUM unit 7134, a shipwrecked Universal Dynamics consumer robot designed to help its humans. The first time you hear it, it’s a robot in a ‘fish out of water’ scenario, forced to look after a newborn baby gosling called Brightbill (Boone Storm, later voiced by Heartstopper’s Kit Connor) after an accident that kills its mother. When it is repeated for the second time after witnessing Roz’s adventurous heroics, it carries so much weight that your heart would have to be made out of stone not to be moved by it all. Answering Roz’s question is easy. It’s 10, 10 for special, extraordinary and heartfelt. 

In hindsight, the seminal line acknowledges what has been another stellar year for animation. At this year’s London Film Festival, it has blessed us with Memoir of a Snail (the follow-up film from the makers of Mary & Max), the cat drama Flow and the Lego-inspired Piece By Piece, a documentary about musician Pharrell Williams. Inside Out 2 became the highest grossing animated film of all time, and at the time of writing, for the first time ever, five animated films dominate the US Box Office. If that is not a showcase for the genre’s resilience and popularity, I don’t know what is anymore.

But such is the state of the industry (experiencing many redundancies within the field and its impact on animators’ mental and financial health), the genre once again has loudly banged that drum to showcase why animation serves as an important medium of creative expression – and Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot makes an outstanding case.

Channelling the same spirit and energy of How to Train Your Dragon (Sanders’ other most recognisable hit), The Wild Robot’s admiration comes from its simple, fast-paced storyline. It’s a breezy one hour and 42 minutes, enthralling audiences into an immersive dive into the lives of this animal civilisation and Roz’s POV as she acclimatises to her new environment. There’s plenty of love and affection for its rapid-fire slapstick, executed to Laurel and Hardy-esque comedy where this task-helping robot goes from slapping corporate stickers onto animals at every interaction to fighting off raccoons (voiced by Star Wars’ Dee Bradley Baker) who audaciously try to steal her robotic parts. The jokes never overstay their welcome, providing crucial building blocks for Roz: the more she helps (despite the animals rejecting her services), the more she adapts and overwrites her programming. After learning their language, Roz becomes a surrogate mother, a role she quips is “not programmed for” after she accidentally crushes Brightbill’s mother during an altercation with Thorn the bear (Mark Hamill). In taking up the responsibility in raising the child, it charts the course for Brightbill’s ultimate purpose: to “eat, swim and fly” for the winter. And Roz is not alone in this co-parenting adventure, befriending Pedro Pascal’s sly fox in Fink (who has a touch of Nick Wilde from Disney’s Zootopia) and Catherine O’Hara’s possum named Pinktail.

You could argue that The Wild Robot is Blade Runner for kids (or its closest association, The Iron Giant) but Sanders’ magical screenplay offers more than that. We see it depicted through Roz’s homeworld when she learns about her purpose whilst scavenging through the wreckage she finds on the island. While Sanders and his wonderful team of animators don’t offer much backstory (perhaps the film’s only weak point), it resonates deeply enough for its stance on how society has slowly become disconnected in a technological world. The clean, sterile environments of Roz’s homeworld have paved the way for consumerist ideals, desperate to fix, sell and mass produce its way into the hearts and minds of society (think tech bros whenever they post a social media video on what AI-generated images can do whilst ripping off the Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke). The Wild Robot’s gift and reward is its celebration of imperfection – imperfect beings living within binary rules of their “programming” and learning to break free from it. Thematically, Sanders’s open yet intimate screenplay excels on the sentiment of ‘finding your tribe’. Underlining how new and unexpected bonds form new identities shaped by extraordinary circumstances and celebrating how differences are a strength rather than a weakness in finding true connection. Elevated by Kris Bowers’ incredible score, it’s only then when Roz starts to unlearn these practices, developing a sentient compassion for Brightbill, is where the film takes flight – and why the film emotionally hits as hard as it does.

Alongside the emotive screenplay, that feeling of reconnection wouldn’t be possible without its animation. Combining 2D and 3D hand-painted style within its animated canvas signifies the continued revolution within the genre. Films like the Spider-Verse films and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (to name a few) were the beginning of its experimentation. Here, the results offer a stunning reality and example in how you feel every single frame of its lush picturesque design. It’s all about the small details. I love how Roz’s chassis turns red whenever she takes on damage. I love how her robotic hand has a life of its own, adding an extra layer to Roz’s functionality. Or the intense vibrancy of its red-infused CGI flames as it spreads within the forest in its third act. It’s a testament to the hundreds of artists who have poured their heart and soul into making this, something which I hope is duly remembered and recognised during awards season. And the payoff of such a feat: watching Brightbill’s training and subsequent migration flight, evoking the same feeling as Toothless and Hiccup’s first flight together in How to Train Your Dragon. 

Nyong’o’s voice work is a joyous experience in one of her best roles in her career. As Roz, she projects so much love and warmth for a logical robot that’s constantly evolving her purpose and existence. Pascal’s Fink doesn’t miss either, playing a character who finds a rare friendship and love with Roz that he cannot be separated from her. Without divulging into spoilers, he gets to deliver some of the film’s most emotional lines.

Animation is cinema, and The Wild Robot is proof of that. It’s a vivid, imaginative and gorgeous animated film that soars and when a story wonderfully wears its heart on its sleeve, it is a beautiful feeling to experience. Bring the tissues, you’re gonna need them.