'Wildwood' is One of the Year's Best title_ext

When you take your seven-year-old daughter to a movie and the opening scene involves a boy ripping his chest open and jumping to his death, you know you’re doing parenting right.

My daughter loves Coraline with a passion, and she has wanted to see Laika Studio’s Wildwood since she first saw the trailer many months ago. Sure, Wildwood comes with a PG-13 rating and a darker story, but what’s the worst that could happen, right?

Well, she loved Wildwood.

And you know why? Because it’s excellent. It’s amazing. It’s pretty damn awesome.

Set in Portland, Oregon, home to Laika and just a few hours south of where I live, Wildwood begins funny enough, dropping various Portland sights and in-jokes (all in stop-animation form) that have to be seen to be believed. But it takes an ominous turn when teenage girl Prue defies her parents’ instructions and takes her baby brother out for some fresh air—only for him to be kidnapped by a murder of crows and swept off to the impenetrable forest for God-knows-what reasons. Prue sets off to save him Labyrinth-style, leading her to a weird world that is both silly and treacherous.

Wildwood isn’t quite a kids movie and yet it is, just one made by people who want to tell the story they tell, no matter what trauma they inflict. It’s like a goth version of Zootopia, a world building tour de force that establishes a land of talking animals and scheming humans that is clouded by tragedy and psychopaths.

Much of Wildwood is downright alluring, its combination of skillful plotting, clever writing, and immersive visual effects an undeniably delightful mix. The longest stop-motion animated film ever made, it looks markedly better—smoother, cleaner, more vibrant—than anything that has come before. Laika and director Travis Knight has brought to life a world that is brimming with energy and character.

If I were to fault Wildwood it’s that the movie, as unique as it is in many ways, ultimately starts to feel like other fantasy adventures, culminating in a big sword and arrow battle that one could argue we’ve seen many times over. Yet even then, the battle is explosively good, well staged, visually absorbing, and exciting.

It was probably the most intense thing my daughter has ever seen.

Wildwood exceeded my already high expectations, giving us a must-see piece of filmmaking that has to be witnessed on the big screen. The fact that my daughter loved it, even though she found some scenes a little scary—a boy committing suicide out of the gate will have that effect—also speaks volumes.

And yes, she is sleeping in my bed tonight, not quite ready to brave her own bed again.

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.