The Wild Robot and Found Family

When my kids saw the preview for The Wild Robot (2024), they asked to see it in theatres. I heard it was based on a book and found a copy at our local game store. No, that wasn’t a mistype; our local game store has a small selection of books for sale. We read a few chapters, and then my kids sadly lost interest. They lost interest until they saw the theatre poster and begged my husband and I to take them to see it. We had some time to kill, the movie time started in 20 minutes, my kids got their way this time. I will never be sorry I took them to see this movie.

Since my children had given up on the book, we were going into this mostly blind. My son barely remembered that I had read him a few chapters of the book. My daughter (4) had a bit of a hard time with any of the scenes that had lighting or loud noises and climbed into my lap. Our whole family enjoyed this heartwarming film and we couldn’t help but notice how engrossed and well behaved our kids were during the film.

This movie follows Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), a Rozzum robot after she crashes on a small island. Roz mistakenly thinks that one of the animals on the island has ordered her and she needs to find her customer. She quickly realizes that she can’t understand anyone and goes into learning mode to learn the language of the animals. Many hijinks ensue as she continues to search for her customer.

Coming to the conclusion that a mistake has been made and no one on the island ordered her, Roz decides to return to the factory. Unfortunately, she gets struck by lightning and a bunch of Raccoons prevent her, leading to her causing an accident. She tries to make up for this accident in the only way her programming says she can. By caring for the lone remaining egg from a nest of goslings.

This movie’s core is about found family. Roz finds Pinktale (Catherine O’Hara), an opossum suffering under the burden of keeping her children alive (or possibly just suffering due to her children). Pinktale explains that Roz’s task will not be complete until the fall. The gosling must be fed until then, be taught how to swim, and be able to fly south for the winter. Roz then finds Fink (Pedro Pascal), a fox that uses Roz’s misunderstanding to his advantage at first, before becoming a friend to her and helping her with her task. Fink is originally met as a predator when the gosling is still in its egg. Fink also explains the gosling must be given a name. After many trials, Roz names him Brightbill (Kit Connor).

Over summer, we meet Longneck (Bill Nighy), who gives Roz more information to make sure she can complete her task. He lets her know that while he cannot directly help her with her task that if she succeeds, he will take over the care of her task by allowing Brightbill to fly south with his family. Roz enlists the help of Thunderbolt (Ving Rhames) and makes another animal friend.

Roz keeps working with animals that Fink tells her she shouldn’t, succeeding where everyone thinks she will fail, and bringing the island together as one family. She shows them that kindness can be a survival skill.

I truly want much of this movie to remain the heartwarming surprise that my family and I have found it to be. We bought the film as soon as we were able. My kids and I are making our way through the book. My daughter likes when she sees moments from the movie, and my son likes the greater depth he gets with the book. This is a movie based on a trilogy and I can only hope that this movie met with enough success that they will also make movies of the other two books. 5 stars for this amazing piece of art.