The Wild Robot: LFF Film Review
New favourite film alert! The Wild Robot, the latest animation from DreamWorks, is my favourite film at the London Film Festival and the only movie I’ve given five stars to this year.
The Wild Robot tells the story of Rozzum 7134 (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), or Roz for short, a Universal Dynamics service robot who washes up on an island inhabited by animals. Programmed to perform tasks for humans, Roz doesn’t know how to function in a place without them. However, when she discovers a baby gosling on its own, she decides her new task should be to raise it. With the help of a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), Roz teaches Brightbill (Kit Connor) to swim and fly and the trio become an unusual family.
I cannot overstate how beautiful this film is. The visuals are stunning and the story has so much heart, wonder and joy. I cried multiple times throughout the film and I can only imagine that it’ll hit parents even harder as it will make them think about raising a child and getting them ready to leave the nest. The gorgeous score by Kris Bowers and two songs by Maren Morris also hit me right in the emotions.
The story is relatively simple and universal but it’s told so well. It’s also really funny, particularly in the first act where a fish-out-of-water Roz tries to offer her services to many different animals. There is a brilliant line-up of characters with distinct voices and personalities. My favourites were the beaver Paddler (with a spectacular voice from Matt Berry) and Pinktail the possum (Catherine O’Hara) and her many children, who are obsessed with death and disease.
All of the voice actors are good, but Nyong’o does a terrific job morphing her voice to signal Roz’s evolution over time. In the beginning, she sounds very robotic but she slowly sounds more and more human as she overrides her limited programming to help her love and care for her adopted son.
The Best Animated Feature Oscar is going to be a fight between Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot. I know the former is well-loved but I really hope Roz and co. snag it!
Seen at the London Film Festival. In cinemas Friday 18th October