Sometimes words get in the way of a great story. Robots and dogs don’t use a lot of words to communicate what they’re feeling to the humans they work with. Director Pablo Berger just removed the human middleman, time traveled us back to the 1980s, and gives us a friendship for the ages: one that didn’t last a long time, but lasted a lifetime for the 2 pals.
In this case, our buddies are Dog and Robot, in a world inhabited by only animals and robots. Dog is living a lonely existence, and after watching at late night 80s infomercial, buys himself a “pet” robot. Robot and Dog click instantaneously, as the innocent, eager to experience life Robot brings Dog out of his shell, making him come alive at the same time.
I did wonder if this premise might be better as a short. And I would pick the first 30 minutes. After easing us into the world, the extended meet cute is just a wonder of delirious euphoria. Watching both Dog and Robot bring out the best in each other just forces your face to twist into a smile, until you can’t help but dance along to September by Earth Wind and Fire during a roller skating performance in Central Park. Berger’s smartest move was his setting: 1980s New York is just rich with every culture, so of course every specific hipster giraffe or groovy snake would come to jam in the park, or at the beach. The Robot Dreams in this case are very real: no need for dreaming when your day to day life is like living in the best dream of all time.
But Berger decided to extend that 30 minutes into 70 more. The movie takes a big bold dive down. Hard. And we’re all of a sudden in a new reality, where Robot and Dog are not able to be together for a pretty long period of time. What happens after you’ve had your perfect life taken away from you so cruelly? The movie gives us two different paths to follow. Robot’s initially appears the most harrowing (it’s definitely the most threatened by real disaster), but being a relative innocent to the world, he mostly acquits himself well; there’s a sequence with birds that nearly brought me to tears multiple times. But even the best of times alone, he yearns to be with his pal Dog, dreaming vivid dreams that blur with his lonely tough situation, bringing a necessary but brutal pathos to Robot. Dog’s helplessness to aid his friend gives him an identity crisis. After being whole, he struggles to find purpose and meaning in a world that never quite understood him. He himself had some great fleeting dalliances with connection (the best being the coolest duck in the East Village), but they never touched his heart like Robot did. Since this isn’t an American film, I had no idea where this movie was going, unburdened by “happy endings only.” The ending Berger does find did bring me to tears: a beautiful, complex mixture of feelings that rival the best of what great animators like Pixar can pull off.
So what do Robots dream of? Well, what we all do: to be with our friends and the ones we love. But the biggest coup Pablo Berger pulls off is the reclamation of the raccoon. I’ll never look at one the same way after what he does with them here. Props to the garbage pandas everywhere!