The Wild Robot

Grade: A

The head and the heart aren’t always on the same page. You could be an encyclopedia on numerous subjects, but be emotionally constipated, or unsure how to express how you feel. If you love something or someone so much, how do you describe it from a technical standpoint? Can’t you just really like it without having to dissect why? The intelligent robot at the forefront of The Wild Robot finds herself (itself?) in this quandary, and so did I. The Wild Robot is smart, funny, enchanting, and one of the best movies of the year – and now I’ll spend a few paragraphs attempting to explain what it did for me. As a character sagaciously observes, sometimes hearts have their own conversations.

The story begins with a sea otter pressing a button on something that has washed up on the shore. This wakes up ROZZUM Unit 7134, a life-sized Alexa/Siri-like smart device. I suppose you could customize it to provide whatever voice you want, but as Lupita Nyong’o supplies the vocal talent, we know it as a woman. She calls herself Roz, and being activated, she wheels around the island, constantly in search of ways to assist anyone who needs help with something – but mainly just manages to scare the animals.

A gosling egg hatches in Roz’s hand. Being the first face it sees when it’s born, the baby imprints on Roz and bonds with her like a mother. An opossum mother encourages Roz to raise it as her own. Roz, the living computer, robotically states that “I don’t believe I’m up for this task.” The opossum reassures her by saying “nobody does, but we do it. Good luck.” Roz, the gosling (they name him Brightbill), and a local fox live together as an unconventional but functional and happy adopted family of three.

There are so many sneaky laughs to be had along the way. The opossum has 7 kids. “Whoops, looks like there was an accident – I have six now. Oh, never mind, he’s okay. I have my seven.” Those who like creative non-profane alternatives to cuss words and phrases will appreciate a clever line late in the movie. When characters need a rodent’s help, and say insincere things to suck up, he responds with “Male bovine excrement!” The sequence where Brightbill practices flying is one of the best montages I’ve ever seen. I’m looking forward to seeing that song performed at the Oscars, with its fellow Best Original Song nominees. A sweetness emerges as Roz, who has been all brain, discovers that she is developing another organ that influences her decisions.

Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Ving Rhames, and Mark Hamill round out the solid cast. The ending doesn’t spoon-feed us every single detail. We are shown just enough to know what will happen. The credits roll and the lights come up abruptly after the last shot; you might be caught with something in your eye. The Wild Robot is magical – the most affected I’ve been by an animated movie since Pixar’s Turning Red in 2022. If it doesn’t have a conversation with your heart, then perhaps you ARE a robot.

Grade: A