A murder of crows, indeed.
Wildwood
The film opens Friday, October 23, only in movie theaters, throughout North America. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.
In despair, a naked young man leaps to his death, leaving behind a grieving mother.
It's hardly the prologue of a film that may, without examination, look like it's aimed at children. Yet the opening of Wildwood, director Travis Knight's adaptation of a novel by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis, and first published in 2011, wisely sets the tone immediately. This is not a children's film; it's rated PG-13 for "strong fantasy violence/bloody images, thematic material, suicide-related material, brief partial nudity and language," marking the first such rating for a film by LAIKA Studios.
Before the darkness returns as the film's predominant tone, a love letter to Portland, Oregon, plays out, introducing Prue McKeel (voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, star of Disney shows Andi Mack and Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.). Located in the scenic Pacific Northwest, Portland is a beautiful city, with next-level beauty across the Columbia River and through the densely-forested woods, with Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helens towering above it all, some 50 miles away.
Prue happily rides her bicycle through the glistening streets, which are filled by happy, colorful people of all ages, colors, and hairstyles. One day, her parents (Maya Erskine, Jake Johnson) trust Prue, who is in her early teens, to care for their infant child Mac. Their primary instruction? "Don't take him outside!"
Cut to Prue gliding through Portland on her bike, with Mac happily bouncing around on the attached cart.
When she slows down and lets Mac out of the cart onto a small playground, her fellow-aged, though distinctly shorter classmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay) rushes in to talk with her. The bespectacled Curtis is clearly besotted with Prue, but he means nothing to her at the moment.
Still, he distracts her; she doesn't notice that a murder of crows is gathering in the playground, surrounding her brother. And before she can stop it, the crows have grabbed young Mac and taken flight.
Thus begins an often breathless and usually reckless series of chases. With Curtis in tow, Prue wheels through the streets on a breakneck chase, stopping for a moment only when she sees the crows take her brother into the Impassable Wilderness across the river, which her parents have warned her about for years.
The woods are said to be impenetrable. (Cue: the name.) Yet that's her brother, and she will stop at nothing to rescue him from the forces that have snatched him away from her -- and her parents. Prue plunges into the Impassable Wilderness.
Curtis comes along too. Even though Prue relates to him as a pest, he considers her his friend, and he wants to help his friend. They are both too young to fully understand the dangers of the forest. Everything changes for both of them, though, when they come upon a gathering of coyotes, who confirm that the Impassable Wilderness is a magical, enchanted place where many perils await.
The film began with an apparent suicide of a young man, who is soon revealed to be a mechanical man, nonetheless grieved sincerely by a woman who is revealed to be Alexandra (Carey Mulligan), a dowager governess who rules the woods. Why and how she becomes a pivotal figure in the film is revealed in due course.
Prue and Curtis find allies and adversaries in the Impassable Wilderness, which is populated by a variety of animals that have separated themselves into allies and adversaries, voiced by the likes of Mahersala Ali, Awkwafina, Amandla Stenberg, Charlie Day, Jemaine Clement, Tom Waits, and Angela Bassett, among others.
It's a marvelous collection of critters with matching voices, but this is not a Disney stew of stellar stars cast on the basis of their names. Instead, their voices speak to the personality of their characters, and to the simmering conflicts that eventually explode.
Travis Knight gained experience as an animator in television and then on Coraline before producing and continuing work as an animator on ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls, ascending to the director's chair on Kubo and the Two Strings, and then helming two live-action franchise films in Bumblebee and Masters of the Universe.
Epic in its scope, Wildwood is an ambitious adventure that is always enchanting. Inherent in its appeal is the idea that an older sibling will risk everything to rescue a younger sibling. Maybe it means more to me because I am a middle child, and I have been the beneficiary of saving acts by both my siblings.
Even though Wildwood is decidedly not a film made for young children, it speaks directly to the strength of family relationships. And you don't have to be related by blood to bond tightly with friends who become your brothers and sisters.