“The Wild Robot” movie accomplished the rare feat of scoring 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Some of this stems from the fact that “The Wild Robot” has a strong cast of voice actors, including Pedro Pascal, Mark Hamill, Bill Nighy, Catherine O’Hare and Stephanie Hsu. It also has beautiful animation and non-verbal storytelling. Beyond these technicalities, however, “The Wild Robot” sets itself apart in the quality of children’s “literature” that it is, which can be seen in its enduring themes, variety of enjoyable scenes and the theological analogies that can be drawn from it.
If you will bear with my momentary deviation from movies to books, when I think of the best children’s literature, titles like “Winnie the Pooh,” “Narnia,” “The Little Prince” or “Wind in the Willows” come to mind. At the end of the day, what makes these works really great is that, while they offer the truth “to children kindly eased” (Emily Dickinson), they have an undying soulfulness and message that lodges itself even in the mind of the jaded adult. They renew hope in ways no truism can, breathe life back into our imagination and form us back into the sort of person who steps outside and notices the smell of the sky. I say all this because I think that it is helpful framing for the kind of movie “The Wild Robot” is. What the “Wind in the Willows” is to “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “The Wild Robot” is to “Paw Patrol.” In the movie world, Sabina Boyer, a sophomore at Asbury, would articulate this as the difference between a family show and a children’s show, and “The Wild Robot” is definitely a family show. “The Wild Robot” will mean more to the adult than the child while still being palatable and engaging for either, and this puts it in a category of enduringly meaningful films similar to truly great children’s literature.
Now, “what exactly is “The Wild Robot” about?” you may ask. Rather than answering that directly, and without giving away any spoilers, I think that it is effective to describe “The Wild Robot” as a mash-up of the shows “Up,” “Wall-E” and “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.” It has an adventurous soul with characters who learn to live life well on the other side of letting go (i.e., “Up”), it is set in a future with a robot we see as morally good and humans who are disengaged from nature (i.e., “Wall-E”), and it has inexplicable perfection, beauty and soul that brings healing to both the child and adult inside of you (i.e., “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse”).
I had the pleasure of going to watch this film in theaters with several friends, and below are some of the favorite parts of the movie we collectively highlighted (mild spoiler alerts):
- Kids can watch it, but it’s for the parents (as already discussed)
- The possible Christological analogies (to be discussed below)
- How it handled death blatantly (which is rare for a kid’s show) without being gratuitous
- It had jokes but never undercut a sincere moment with comedy
- An unexpected goodbye where a character says “What if I need to talk to you and you’re not here?”
- The wordless montage (with skillful visual storytelling) where one of the characters learns to fly
- Adorable scenes of the baby bird growing up with the robot and also imitating her
- The possums
- How it lets you see going to college through your parents’ eyes
- A significant picture at the end that focused on the community and how the community was held together rather than on the individual
There are many more themes and scenes from this movie that could be highlighted, but the final aspect of this film I would like to draw attention to is its theology (SPOILER ALERT. BYPASS THIS PARAGRAPH IF WISHING TO AVOID SPOILERS). In a discussion about the film at the library, junior Fisher McCartney commented that the movie was “epistemological”, or as my roommate Emelia Conley articulated, the robot sacrificially gave up everything, including its programming (i.e., incarnation) and, at the end of the film, the robot leaves because it will be better for us that way, “yet we all know she still loves us and will come back one day” — we just don’t know when (i.e., the way the Scriptural narrative ends drawing us into the ongoing story of awaiting the second coming of Christ). The movie left one of my friends in tears feeling reminded of the personal and deep love of God for her.
If it is not yet abundantly clear from my review, “The Wild Robot” is beautiful, stirring and absolutely deserves your $15, 2 hours and a car full of friends. And please do go see it in theaters while you can rather than just on streaming services — it vastly deserves the immersive experience.
Written by contributor Joy Hibshamn.
