It was a book before it was a movie.
My review of The Wild Robot movie.
Disclaimer: I tried to keep this review spoiler-free, but do discuss specific plot points in the movie The Wild Robot.
How it started
We all have opinions about movie adaptations of books, and I would love to share what I found to be a heart-filled and faithful adaptation of a book my family all love.
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown was the first chapter book my eldest “read by himself.” I use quotes because I had to help with every third word, and sometimes read large portions to him. But he was motivated to read it independently and I wasn’t going to turn his budding love of reading into a chore by making him struggle through it alone.
He read the entire trilogy, then turned back to book one and started over. Honestly, I enjoyed it just as much as he did. The prose is lovely while remaining accessible to children, and the story navigates topics like predator vs. prey and death very gently but honestly.
When I saw it was being turned into a movie, my heart sank. I don’t have a very high opinion of the children’s movies that have been made in recent years. But eldest was sitting beside me and as the commercial ended he turned wide, hopeful eyes on me. “Mom, can we watch that?” How do I say no to those big brown eyes?
I did a little reading online. What’s the movie’s rating? What did other parents think of its appropriateness? I found nothing of note and so, a few weeks later, we got in the car, drove to the theater, bought overpriced popcorn, and settled in for my son’s first moviegoing experience.
The obvious and the personal
Anyone who’s read the book can expect many of the same themes in the movie: adoption and found family, the dangerous reality of wild animals, and learning to adapt, among others.
Community is a huge part of the book, and its first apearance in the movie was also the moment I began to pick up on another theme entirely. By the end, I had concluded that this movie was about motherhood.
Mom club
In the movie, Roz, the robot for whom the movie and book are named, finds herself responsible for a newly hatched gosling that imprints on her. She has no idea what the gosling needs and this becomes immediately apparent to a mother opossum who is nearby. In an exchange that will be intimately familiar to every single mom out there, the seasoned opossum mother of 7, steps in and points out the obvious but unfamiliar-to-Roz facts. Babies need food, shelter, and to be taught things. Besides that, we’re all making it up as we go.
I was immediately transported back to the checkout line at the grocery store, my firstborn in a carrier on my chest, wailing with every ounce of his three-week-old might. I knew every single person in that store could hear us, and that it was my job to handle it. With shaking hands and tears in my eyes, I was fighting with the card reader, trying to pay and get out of there as fast as possible. The teenage cashier watched in bewildered silence. The woman behind me, probably my own mother’s age, stepped up, gently took the card out of my hand, and swiped it on the other side of the machine. Of course, it worked that time. With a kind smile, the woman leaned toward my ear and said, “You’re doing a good job, mom.”
That was it. I was initiated into the mom club right there with a screaming baby on my chest and ice cream melting in my cart, and I understood the rules. Moms need other moms to encourage them and pick them up when it’s falling apart. Occasionally, moms can be judgmental of one another, but in my experience, strangers will step up to help, simply because we’re both in the mom club.
With that kind woman’s words, I was suddenly able to breathe again, to press the necessary buttons on the card reader, and then push my cart to my car where I sat and nursed and then got us home in one piece.
The Village
As the movie moved on, I saw more familiar phenomena play out. At first, Roz is isolated, trying to figure everything out with no guidance. She’s raising a gosling, an animal that’s supposed to be part of a flock, but the flock has rejected him. Roz has a moment where she hits that rock bottom realization that she can’t be everything for her child, but also can’t quit because he needs her.
I’ve learned that rock bottom is where you find your village. The other animals must sense the resignation and earnestness in Roz because suddenly and with no explanation they begin to show up with exactly what she needs. A beaver makes her a wooden leg to replace her broken one. An old goose outlines steps Roz can take to get her gosling “in” with the flock before they migrate. The opossum and her 7 kids show up again.
Inexplicably, Roz suddenly has a village around her, stepping into the gaps, helping her raise her gosling.
The Homeschooler
Roz is programmed to learn, and I clocked her as a homeschool mom early on. Every problem that crops up, she approaches with curiosity and study. She expects the same from her gosling, relying on diagrams and book-learning to teach him to fly. When she can’t help him fly that way, she finds experts to work with him much like a mom finding a tutor. She models continuous learning and views herself as being educated alongside her child.
The Lighthouse
It’s impossible to adapt a book into a movie without making any changes, and I found one change in particular very moving. In the books, there is no meaningful mention of Roz being able to light up. We learn when she is damaged via narration that isn’t present in the movie. In the movie, they needed another way to show us Roz’s condition, so they made her light up. Blue means she’s functioning normally. Red means damage or danger. Light beams from her eyes, help us know where she’s looking. That change makes sense but brought with it a more powerful metaphor.
Roz’s stated goal at the outset is to get off the island, but she can’t so long as her gosling needs her. She’s continuously trying to step out of the center of attention and leave as small of an impact as possible. The movie keeps pushing her to the center against her will. It’s most apparent when a deep freeze is threatening the animals on the island.
In low-visibility conditions, Roz’s eyes become spotlights, letting her cut through the snow to find animals that need help. I was struck by the surely intentional way Roz’s vision moves like a lighthouse beam guiding in ships. She wants to fade into the background and be the quiet helper but forgets entirely when she’s needed. When her loved ones are in danger, she becomes a literal lighthouse to them. She will be as bright, loud, and fast as she must when it’s for others.
I have watched so many moms become overnight experts in whatever their child is dealing with. I’ve seen moms advocate tirelessly when their child needs something. Moms will become whatever is needed so long as they’re needed.
In conclusion
I went to see The Wild Robot expecting an adaptation of the book with all the modern dumbing-down of children’s entertainment. What I found was a film that not only preserved the heart of the books but also leveraged the medium of cinema to add a beautiful narrative about motherhood’s challenges and rewards which I could watch again and again.
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