Wildwood

What makes something a must-see event? Some people might say the Super Bowl or the World Cup. For me, certain movies belong in that conversation, too, and I’m not talking about the latest Marvel movie, no matter how wild it gets. I’m talking about Travis Knight and Laika Studios’ Wildwood, which feels like watching magic happen right in front of you. The story is great, but the craftsmanship behind it is just as astonishing.

Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) lives in Portland, Oregon, with her parents (Jake Johnson and Maya Erskine) and her baby brother, Mac (Arthur Knight). They seem like a pretty happy family. When her parents leave Mac in her care, they give her one simple rule: keep him inside the house. Of course, Prue has a day of adventure planned for the two of them.

Everything is going fine until a flock of crows swoops in and carries Mac away. Prue gives chase, following them toward the very woods she’s always been told never to enter. But with her brother in danger, staying out isn’t an option.

Once inside, she discovers an entirely different world, where animals talk and some even serve as soldiers. Her search for Mac puts her in the middle of a battle over the land. Alexandra (Carey Mulligan) and her army of coyote soldiers are trying to reawaken the ivy, while the Bandit King (Mahershala Ali) and others fight to stop her. Somehow, Mac is a key part of it all. Prue just wants to bring her little brother home safely, but doing that means getting caught up in something much bigger than she could have imagined.

Written by Chris Butler and adapted from the novel by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis, Wildwood builds an incredible world without getting bogged down in explanations. It establishes the stakes, draws us into a fight between good and evil, and gives us a personal reason to care through Prue’s determination to save her brother. And it tells that story through some truly beautiful stop-motion animation. Knight embraces the scope of the book and swings for the fences. For me, he hits a home run, delivering a spectacle in every sense of the word.

I honestly don’t know if I have enough words to describe how impressive Wildwood is. The detail is extraordinary, with the woods becoming a character of their own. The work of Laika’s stop-motion artists would be enough to get me into a theater, but the movie gives us so much more than something beautiful to look at.

There’s real, raw emotion here, including a deeply sad story about reconciliation, anger, and grief. It understands the kind of pain that can make someone feel as though the whole world should burn along with them. That emotional weight gives the adventure something to hold on to, even as the film takes us further into its fantastical world.

Wildwood is a beautiful, carefully crafted movie that transported me somewhere I didn’t want to leave. The people behind it have created a world where anything feels possible, and I can’t say enough about what they’ve accomplished. At this point, all I can really say is to go see it and experience it for yourself. Masterpieces like this don’t come along very often.

Brian Taylor

Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema