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For a certain type of Portland teen or tween, we are two days out from one of the most significant cultural happenings of their young life. Wildwood, the new Laika stop-motion animation film, hits theaters Friday, Oct. 23. It’s a homegrown affair, based on the 2011 fantasy novel by Portland indie power couple Colin Meloy (lead singer of The Decemberists) and Carson Ellis (celebrated illustrator and children’s book author), and handcrafted over five years in the Hillsboro studios of Laika after a decade of development.
The plot: A teenager must save her baby brother after he’s abducted by crows into the Impassable Wilderness—an enchanted forest hidden near Portland. Going by the trailer, there will be visual call-outs to Pittock Mansion, the St. Johns Bridge, cherry blossoms on the waterfront, and Forest Park’s Wildwood Trail.
Surely the marketing machine is whirring nationwide for this film, but nowhere more vibrantly than here, where a murder of crow sculptures has been a 30-stop public art trail throughout the city since August, and the sides of TriMet buses and shelters are emblazoned with Wildwood ads. Portlanders can start their days with a Wildwood Wild Berry doughnut at Voodoo Doughnut and a can of Wildwood-branded cold brew from Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
All of this has whipped my artsy middle schooler into an anticipatory frenzy. She yells “Wildwood!” every time she sees one of those bus ads, which has made for some jumpy drives. She’s curated an all stop-motion animation film festival of sorts for the past month, rewatching Coraline, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Fantastic Mr. Fox. She’s speed-reading the 2011 novel, trying to finish by the 23rd. (Many older Portland teens have already read the entire trilogy, seeding an even deeper, more established fandom unrelated to any Hollywood marketing machine.)
Part of it is that she knows that I’m also really excited for the movie, as a 40-something mom squarely in The Decemberists fan demographic. We’re really just egging each other on. Sharing pop culture fandom is one of my great joys of parenting, and Laika content is some of our family’s favorite. I brought my whole brood of three to the Portland Art Museum in 2017, the baby in a frontpack, to see Coraline’s garden at the exhibition Animating Life: The Art, Science and Wonder of Laika, and we always swing by the glass cases of Laika puppets before flights at Portland International Airport.
If you don’t have a murder of teenagers (that’s certainly the collective noun for both crows and teenagers, right?) forcing Wildwood fandom onto you, here are seven ways to immerse in this cultural moment, all on your own.
1. Read the Wildwood Chronicles trilogy ($36 for the box set at Powell’s), published from 2011 to 2014. The middle-grade fantasy adventure series is recommended for ages 9–12, so the prose will go down easy but still has the elevated, rich lyricism that Meloy is known for. So while you likely won’t make it through all 1,760 pages of the three books while the film is in theaters, you should be able to get through a chunk of it.
2. Listen to the soundtrack. The 13-track album Wildwood Sessions dropped Oct. 16 and features original songs by tons of artists with Portland connections, including The Decemberists, Aminé, Portugal. The Man, New Constellations and more. Song titles are pure Portland-core, including “Some Days Are Made for Rain” by Canadian Japanese experimental musician Saya Gray and “Rose Parade” by local songwriter Ryan Oxford.
3. Walk the “Follow the Crows” public art trail, if you must. At least go see illustrator Ellis’ crow at the St. Johns Library (7510 N Charleston Ave.), and perhaps the Willamette Week–sponsored doughnuts one by Julianne Zane at Ankeny Alley (Southwest 2nd Avenue and Ankeny Street). The crows will be up through Halloween.
4. See the film at an independent cinema. Hollywood Theatre’s 35 mm opening weekend showings are mostly sold out, but seeing the film there in digital form would be cool too. Moreland Theater (6712 SE Milwaukie Ave.) is hosting a Q&A with three Laika illustrators after the 7:15 showing Sunday, Oct. 25, the culmination of the theater’s multiweek Laika Festival with screenings of The Boxtrolls, ParaNorman and Coraline.
5. Hike the Wildwood Trail. The Wildwood Trail runs 30 miles end to end, stretching from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington Park to Northwest Newberry Road at its northernmost point. It’s all glorious, but the obvious hike to prep for the film is the section that winds past Pittock Mansion (3229 NW Pittock Drive).
6. Ride the Bike Bus. Go big and picturesque and join the bike bus (read: a large group cycling event for children, no actual buses involved) for a 2-mile ride across the St. Johns Bridge and back. The group, led by Safe Routes to School groups, is meeting at 7:30 am Saturday, Oct. 24, at the St. Johns Library for the ride.
7. Go to the Portland Book Festival. Meloy and Ellis are headlining this year’s festival, presented by Literary Arts, on Saturday, Nov. 7. Tickets to their 10 am talk at the Schnitz are sold separately from a general admission pass to the festival, and some of the ticket levels are already sold out, so act quickly.
