In ‘Wildwood,’ Everything Is Immaculately Detailed Except the Characters

One of the disappointing aspects of moving everything to a CGI landscape is that the answer to “How did they do that?” is “Computers.” That’s not to devalue the hard work of digital engineers and animators, but the way they solve problems happens completely within a digital realm. Looking at Wildwood, I was frequently flabbergasted at how, through stop-motion, the animators at Laika could construct such intricate movements and interplays between the puppets and the environment. Every frame is so painstakingly crafted and fully alive. And yet it left me wondering how they could pour so much effort into the handcrafted artistry and yet miss the finer points of their characters. Wildwood falls into a familiar trap for the fantasy epic where the world-building is lush and fully realized, but we lose sight of the characters inhabiting it. There’s so much to marvel at in the movie, and yet the characters driving the action remain firmly two-dimensional.

Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family, who have cautioned her that she must never take her infant brother Mac outside. One day, ignoring their wishes, she takes him out to wander the weird streets of Portland where she comes across classmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), a nerdy-but-sweet klutz. When they venture to a local playground, a swarm of crows kidnaps Mac and takes him to an enchanted forest at the edge of town. Prue and Curtis race to rescue Mac but become embroiled in a battle across Wildwood, a magical land where animals can talk and live side-by-side with humans. In this realm, a war is brewing between the roguish Bandit King Brendan (Mahershala Ali) and the grief-stricken dowager governess Alexandra (Carey Mulligan), with Prue and Curtis caught in the middle.

Part of me feels like everyone should see Wildwood because there’s never been a stop-motion animated feature like it. This is director Travis Knight’s magnum opus, an animated epic far exceeding anything a major studio has attempted before. While there are darker and arguably more intricate stop-motion movies in shorts and indies, Wildwood always plays like a blockbuster. In the climactic battle, it’s as if someone tried to do Lord of the Rings in stop-motion animation, losing none of the thrills or the carnage (Wildwood earns its PG-13 rating). Every shot is stunning not only for the level of movement, but for how every stitch and leaf feels purposefully designed. In a world where we’re promised that computers make everything faster and cheaper, there’s nothing here that feels fast and cheap. In some ways, I’m surprised it only took fifteen years between the release of Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis’ 2011 novel and the movie we have now.

And yet there is an element here that’s undercooked, and that’s Prue. Granted, most of the characters are fairly thin, but Prue is supposed to be the heroine of this story. Her epic journey doesn’t seem to change her or force her to reconsider her values. She has a want (get Mac back), and she has a reason (she loves her little brother). But what the journey means to Prue and how it will change her never becomes clear. At most, she has the confidence of an adolescent who thinks she has all the answers, only to discover how flawed adults can be, which is fine, but it doesn’t come alive through the storytelling. A lot of Prue’s action is either running around (there are three chase sequences in the film’s first hour) or receiving loads of exposition. What Prue learns never changes her motivations or how she sees the world.

If there’s a rampant sense of discovery, it’s more about what’s around the corner in this magical world and less so about the characters who inhabit it. Curiously, the deepest character is Alexandra, the film’s villain. Aside from the stunning animation (the way they handled the facial movements to get her from cruel to sympathetic within moments is something that human actors would envy), her longing and what drives her to evil deeds is at least rooted in something real. There’s a parallel between her motivations and Prue’s, but Prue’s lacks the emotional weight of Alexandra’s, as if the filmmakers knew how to connect with a struggling adult but not an irritated adolescent. 

This leaves Wildwood, for all of its verdant environs, with a bland space at its center. Prue is enough of an audience surrogate with reasonable motivation to create stakes, but rarely does Wildwood hit the emotional beats it's aiming for. At times the film feels like it's exploring to see what else there is rather than how much it adds to the story, like a trip to the bureaucratic South Wood and its ineffective governor. I don’t mind that the film works in the broad kind of epic fantasy that we’ve been missing since Game of Thrones pulled the genre in the direction of gritty realism. It’s great that there are talking coyotes who wear clothes and bear farmers mingle with humans. But I never felt like the emotional stakes came anywhere close to soaring as high as the visuals.

Wildwood opens in theaters on October 23. Matt Goldberg is a film and TV critic who runs the newsletter Commentary Track.