There are animation houses that traffic in sarcastic humor, pop culture references, and easy life lessons — and then there’s Laika. The Pacific Northwestern studio which gave us Coraline And Kubo and the two strings has the artisanal, regional vibe of an independent label; it’s like the K Records of stop-motion toons.
And these vaguely hipsters Portlandia vibrations are very present in Wild wood, partly in the form of mild self-deprecation and partly in the offbeat darkness (or maybe it’s dark quirkiness) that colors his YA fantasy story. As if Laika’s base in Hillsboro, the region of Oregon known colloquially as Silicon Forest, wasn’t strong enough, this modern fairy tale draws its source material from a 2011 novel by Decemberist leader Colin Meloy and his illustrator wife Carson Ellis. The dream of the 90s is alive and well in this initiatory tale. So is the dream of the ’90s animation boom, in which flying flags and previously untapped emotional frequencies helped fuel a renaissance.
In fact, it’s the film’s affectionate recreation of Portland that hits you first, a mobile, artisanal feast of bohemian cafes, funky farmers’ markets, street sculptures and the bibliophile’s promised land that is Powell’s Books. (Keep an eye out for the appearance of a bike messenger who looks very familiar.) The specificity of the landscape is ingrained. It also provides an urban playground for Prue (voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a teenager tasked with caring for her little brother Mac. Her crunchy granola parents (Maya Erskine and Jake Johnson) seem more than a little overprotective of their youngest child; the reluctant babysitter is given strict instructions not to leave the premises. Do not go beyond the fence. Definitely don’t go downtown. And whatever you do, stay away from the densely forested area known as the “Impassable Desert.”
Naturally, Prue throws her brother into a red wagon, rides his bike to Voodoo Donuts to treat himself, and generally disobeys her hippie parents. She meets Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), a fantasy-loving nerd who might have already gotten a 20 in religious magic, but who has snake eyes when it comes to interacting with girls. They’re so busy talking that they almost don’t see the disturbing murder of crows who seem to have their collective eyes on Mac. A Hitchcock homage later, the birds stole Prue’s little brother. She and Curtis follow the avian kidnappers deep into the woods to retrieve him. And once they enter the center of the Impassable Desert? Chaos reigns.
Carrie Mulligan in Wildwood.
Laika
Celebrity-voiced chaos and eccentrics: Carey Mulligan presents herself as a forest warrior queen who seems motherly, until she really isn’t. Mahershala Ali leads the resistance against evil powers as a rebel bandit. Tom Waits lends his wild baritone to the commander of a military coyote brigade. Awkwafina pays nice homage to Templeton as a hungry rat, Angela Bassett provides the proclamations of a golden eagle, Jemaine Clement fights his way through a role as a bureaucratic toad, and Richard E. Grant is aptly cast as a wise, albeit imprisoned, owl. Listen closely and you’ll hear Blythe Danner, Rob Delaney, Charlie Day and Flower Moon Killers‘s Tantoo Cardinal pipe in their recognizable two cents as well.
Eventually, it is revealed that the smooth-talking royal resident has a history that involves the film’s disturbing preamble, in which an automaton rips out his mechanical heart and collapses to his death. Like we said: shit gets dark. And Prue’s helicopter parents may have a legitimate reason to worry, given that they once made a Faustian bargain that their stubborn daughter will now be forced to render null and void. It’s worth mentioning that war is brewing in this multi-species interior world and, like the legion of other YA fantasy franchises that Wildwood generously, begs, borrows and steals – you keep wondering if a lion or a wardrobe will appear after each of Mulligan’s witchy line readings – all will happen in an epic showdown between good and evil.
Perhaps we’ve become jaded after so many afternoons at multiplexes being subjected to so many mind-blowing, drawn-out battle royales in so many films. Perhaps that’s why, when director Travis Knight and his team of stop-motion commandos stage these impressively rendered but extremely familiar sequences, it feels more like a triumph of animation than imagination. And then, just when you feel some numbness from the sound and fury, the film drops a bombshell on you: a wide shot that looks like a Bosch painting; a vegetation revenge staple – one that leaves you softly muttering “Whoa”.
Yes, Wildwood is a bit gentle in its storytelling, even if its takeaways are a bit more complicated than your average tween-friendly feature film. (“I thought growing up was supposed to give you all the answers, but it just leaves you with more questions,” Prue says at one point. Shots fired, Disney!) But from a technical standpoint, it’s a demonstration of the kind of human touch in animation that can often seem sorely lacking, and which Laika turned into a house special. It’s not so much a product as the product of people intent on proving that, to quote a wise man, animation is cinema and not a genre.
Gn entert
