I believe part of the reason anime popularity has risen across the US the last couple decades is because it is a bridge between being a kid and being an adult. American Animation tries to do this (Pixar for sure), but generally animated movies are realms for the children…except maybe stop motion animation. But is that style a relic of the past? Wildwood dares to take animation into this transitional period, and for the most part, succeeds magnificently with it, breathing new life into the art form.
Wildwood frankly looks like a project Prue McKeel’s (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) parents (Jake Johnson and Maya Erskine) might be making. From Portland Oregon, Prue is at that teen age where she’s openly question everything her parents ask of her, including why she can’t take her brother Mac (Arthur Knight) outside the house. So when Prue is asked to babysit, she obviously ignores the warnings and takes Mac to the playground for fun. While distracted by Curtis (Jacob Tremblay) a boy who likes her, Prue realizes a giant murder of crows has gathered, swoops down, and takes her brother into the scary woods across the bridge. Desperate to get him back, Prue and Curtis find a portal in those woods taking them into the magical forest, where they learn, a Dowager Governess Alexandra (Carey Mulligan) has been gathering an army and using dark magic to rule the kingdom, which includes using Mac for more nefarious purposes.
There’s no other way to say it. Wildwood pushes stop motion animation into new heights. This movie looks….scrumtrulescent, because there’s no other way to describe it’s perfection. The wood truly is magical, whether we’re walking through nature, inside a mansion of bureaucratic weirdos, taking flight over the clouds with shockingly intricately animated eagles, or engaging in a battle sequence that must have taken years to film. I gasped multiple times at what I was looking at here, impressed in every way possible: creature design, fusion of stop motion and CGI, and colors that pierce right into your heart and soul. I almost would have preferred Wildwood to be a silent movie, where I could just bask in the beautiful scenery right in front of me taking it all in as slowly as possible. My favorite parts of these movies are the end credits, where they show the pain staking meticulous artistic detail put into this film, because the audience needs to see it to understand just how much of a miracle stop motion animation is when it’s done as right as it was here.
This detail is necessary for Travis Knight to do right by the incredible book he’s adapting. Wildwood is NOT an animated movie for kids under 10. In painstaking storytelling, it is about that fateful time where the veil of the world of adults is lifted, and how you are meant to deal with this new information. That includes things like violence: Curtis plays a lot of these heroic D&D like games at home; but when he’s asked by the governess to really use a weapon, he’s overcome with fear and consequences, terrified that a human could end up in a place like that. Same with Prue, who learns the more personal lesson: parents aren’t gods, they are people, flawed and frail like she is, untethering her from safety. The stakes are set from minute 1, and never relent, as real, adult danger looms over every sequence; even majestic ones can turn dark in an instant. The humor follows suit with this: I also gasped when I heard an animated character say “son of a bitch”; now the character was a coyote, so that’s very daringly funny, as the audience understands the movie they’ve entered into. Wildwood might end up leaving you a little cold inside, but that’s because you’re recollecting the pain of growing up, which this movie channels impressively so.
I understand the needs of a business like making movies. And I realize that stop motion animation is at a disadvantage because of how long these movies take to make. But especially this year, please watch I Am Frankelda and Wildwood, and tell me that those movies don’t bleed artistic expression and excellence? We can’t always make decisions solely on money; the reason we love movies so much is because there’s real passion the artists, especially stop motion artists put into making these films come to life. Thanks Travis Knight, and thanks to the weirdo upbringing Portland Oregon gave your imagination.