I am happy to report that after being excited for Dreamworks’ The Wild Robot for over six months, I wasn’t disappointed. The story of the robot Roz navigating an unfamiliar island and taking care of a gosling along the way was simple, but told with passion and sincerity in every aspect. 

There’s so much to unpack from the film in the thematic department: motherhood, othering, belonging, kindness, communication, technology, the brutality of nature. Death lurks around every corner as Roz tries to survive and keep the runt gosling Brightbill alive on this island where it’s eat or be eaten. Despite the danger, there is beauty and something inspirational in this world that I can’t stop thinking about. 

Spoilers for The Wild Robot, the movie. 

The world is harsh but beautiful

Not only does The Wild Robot take place on a future earth, but it’s an earth that has gone through extreme climate change. One of my absolute favorite shots of the film is of whales swimming over a flooded Golden Gate Bridge. A few other shots show flooded cityscapes. Such a drastic shift in sea level rise implies one of the worst case scenarios of climate change: the complete melting of polar ice sheets.