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Oregonians know a lot of things: Ivy is invasive and evil; you do not piss off the crows; we live in the most beautiful place on earth. Wildwood, which opened Oct. 23, is Laika’s magnum opus, an artistic marvel, and the best advertisement Oregon could ask for, especially in light of certain events over the past year that may have painted us in the media as a “war-ravaged hellscape.”
The first 10 minutes of Wildwood are basically a Travel Portland ad. It veers into parody at times, but the filmmakers are in on the joke. Prue McKeel bicycles her baby brother from St. Johns to the cherry blossoms along the waterfront to the Burnside Powell’s, then makes a stop at Voodoo Doughnut before heading back to St. Johns for some coffee and inciting incidents.
The early sequence is quite the Portland Easter egg hunt. The book came out 15 years ago, and it’s that Portland the movie puts forth. Does that busker look a bit like Wildwood author and Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy? Why yes, and look! Wildwood illustrator Carson Ellis is selling street art. There goes the Unipiper! But the movie is not only in-jokes for locals.
Wildwood’s Portland has a magical border midway across the St. Johns Bridge that no “outsider” should be able to penetrate. This Portland doesn’t claim Pittock Mansion; fictional South Wood’s bureaucratic government does, which includes a governor regent and many anthropomorphic animals. Once Prue and her classmate Curtis enter The Impassible Wilderness to save her brother from a murder of crows, an army of coyotes, and an evil witch, geography folds in on itself, conflating for the sake of awe.
The eagle flight sequence, part of which is shown in the trailer, is the most stunning five minutes of animation ever committed to film, surpassing Laika’s previous epic stop-motion efforts. The eagle flies inexplicably from Forest Park directly through the Columbia Gorge and, immediately, with a view of Mount Hood, you see the ocean. Anyone who has done Hood to Coast knows you can’t see Haystack Rock from the mountain, but the shot is so breathtaking, it doesn’t matter. Wildwood and Wildwood are fantastical, even if the Painted Hills, which we all know are a four-to-five-hour drive from town, appear in the near distance.
In addition to the impressive technical feat of the film, it’s a successful adaptation of Meloy’s 541-page epic, the first book in a trilogy. The film streamlines the plot and overlaps action with expository narration, moving the two-hour-plus runtime right along. Like the book, the film is violent. Really violent. It earns its PG-13 rating especially in the climactic battle, which is more Lord of the Rings: Return of the King than child’s fairy tale, as the setup to the story might suggest. Like a Grimms fairy tale, the bad guys meet grisly ends, but unlike many movies aimed at children, the children (and animals—yikes!) are not always spared, so bear that in mind if watching with sensitive viewers. There will be blood, and dead bodies to go with it.
Happy endings don’t arrive tied up in a bow in this technicolor world. And that mix of vibrancy and violence should force the powers that be to take this movie seriously. This film will be nominated and will probably win an Academy Award for animation, but its execution takes it out of the limited realm of kids’ entertainment. Wildwood isn’t just for children.
That all happens in Wildwood, which is gritty and flawed, with warring factions of humans and animals, forced coyote conscription and a fascist dictator whose selfish plans threaten to topple the whole society (relatable). By contrast, the Oregon the film puts forth is a utopia. It has and will continue to be called Portlandia-esque. Prue’s hippie parents, who entrust their tween with their infant while they go to “the” craft fair (as if there’s only one) might seem hyperbolic to anyone who doesn’t know a dozen people exactly like them. You only see the pretty parts of the city. Certain individuals (like the president) might make fun of the woke culture and twee little weird world of the film.
Wildwood has been described already in early reviews as an “astonishing love letter,” but, to us, it’s a gift we receive and give. Wildwood accurately reflects what those who love Oregon see when we look outside, a wonderful world where we will fight for the people and nature we love, support the greater good and do everything in our power to defeat those who seek us harm, even if, when we go to battle, we’re kind of cute and still maintain our sense of humor.
SEE IT: Wildwood screens at most local theaters. See venue websites for showtimes.
