The Wild Robot

Animation has spent a decade slowly rediscovering that films are allowed to look like paintings, and The Wild Robot is where that finally pays off completely. Every frame looks brushed rather than rendered.

The story is simple. A robot washes up on an island, accidentally becomes a parent, and has to learn kindness from a species that keeps trying to eat it. That is it. That is enough.

Lupita Nyong'o does astonishing work with a voice that starts flat and mechanical and slowly, almost imperceptibly, becomes warm. You do not notice it happening. That is the craft.

The last stretch introduces a bigger, louder threat that the film did not need, and the smaller story it was telling was more than strong enough on its own.

Take the kids. Take tissues. Do not pretend you are fine. Nobody is fine.