REVIEW: “Wildwood”: After 16 Years Of Development, LAIKA’s Magical Stop Motion Fantasy Is A Spectacle To Behold
by Benjamin Dzialdowski · BuzzFeedWildwood: ★★★★★
This epic stop-motion animation is a true fantasy story. In perhaps one of the most ambitious stop-motion films of all time, we’re taken to Portland, Oregon, and the mystical woods at its doorstep that play host to a magical land beyond the reach of ‘outsiders’.
From the very first scene, Wildwood introduces dark, more painful themes; it’s Laika Studios’ first PG-13 animation for a reason, and it takes no time to set the tone as we witness a tragedy that made me think, ‘wow, they’re not messing around’.
Back in the city – but years in the future – we follow the 13-year-old Prue McKeel (voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a Portland native who’s old for her age, having grown out of the magic and fairytale stories she was told as a kid. Prue lives with her hippie-adjacent parents who love a craft market and a knitted hat, and her baby brother Mac.
Wildwood has a wonderfully self-aware humour throughout, beginning with an on-the-nose tip of the hat to Portland’s wacky and hipster stereotype with the depictions of the city, and continuing throughout with various nods to fantasy and adventure story tropes.
Every good fantasy requires a journey of sorts, and that’s exactly what Wildwood is all about. When Prue’s baby brother is snatched from under her watch by a murder of crows, she must venture into the woods to find and save him. In true fantasy fable fashion, Prue is not alone; her companion is Curtis Mehlberg (Jacob Tremblay), a classmate of hers who she isn’t initially all that keen on, with his interest in role play and dice games seemingly too immature for her.
The beauty of Wildwood is held within the woods itself, as we explore a politically divided land full of wonder, secrecy, and magic. Our central antagonist (voiced by Carey Mulligan) is The Dowager Governess, a sorceress whose evil intent stems from the corruptive power of sorrow and grief.
With jeopardy, magic, battles, and talking animals, Wildwood has all the elements of a pure fantasy adventure, but it also has a depth that can’t be understated. The entire film is bathed in the shadow of loss, and the storyline is propelled by the lengths that people will go to in order to recover what they love.
The sheer scale of Wildwood is an artistic achievement of itself. Rarely does stop-motion animation take on such wide-spanning landscapes and epic scenes, and it truly does make for a spectacle. The puppetry and animation was a Goliath project – years in the making – and the visual rewards are stunning. In an age where AI and technological shortcuts threaten to strangle imagination and creativity, projects like Wildwood show just why human touch, vision, and care are so important.
It’s not just a visual spectacle, though; Wildwood is an actual story, an engrossing tale with loss, love, peril, humour, and companionship, set just outside Portland, Oregon. It’s the type of story that makes you want to nourish your inner child, the part of you that would look out upon a towering wall of trees and create a whole mystical world beyond them.
You can see Wildwood in UK cinemas on October 23.