In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
We were having an argument, the subject of which is immaterial (another way of saying I lost.) Rhetorically cornered, I retreated to that last refuge of the scoundrel, the appeal to my own independence.
“I’m an adult,” I insisted. “I can take care of myself.”
To which my dad replied: “A dog can take care of itself, you’re only an adult when you can take care of others.”
This rhetorical defeat came to mind as I watched “The Wild Robot,” DreamWorks animation’s delightful new film about the sweet spot of the soul, nestled somewhere in between animal and machine.
The film takes place in the near future, in a world where ecological disaster has sent humanity running to high-teched dome cities safe from the outside world. One particularly arresting image shows the spans of the Golden Gate Bridge just barely poking out from the risen tide.
Yet “The Wild Robot” is not a lecture on the perils of climate change because actually, the natural world we see has adapted pretty swimmingly to the changed earth. If anything, this future is an ego check on the vanity of assuming we could stop nature if we wanted.
When a shipment of robot workers destined for a domed city gets swept off a cargo ship, the lone “survivor” washes ashore on an uncharted isle somewhere north of the border. This Robotson Crusoe is ROZZUM Unit 7134, “Roz” for short. Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) resorts to her programming and sets out to help the local population with their needs, which happens to be the local wildlife. Even after she deciphers their language, the animals remain wary of this metal monster who has all the pep and tact of a Walmart greeter.
As the more patient species try to explain to Roz, the natural world is naturally suspicious of altruism. It’s called The Wild for a reason, and a place red in tooth and claw doesn’t know how to respond to a creature who wants to help. Fink (Pedro Pascal), the fox who advises her in between exploiting her naivety, explains it simply: just as Roz has programming to help others, the animals have their own “programming” to hunt and kill and survive.
But each bumps up against the limits of their programming when Roz accidentally kills a mother goose while fleeing a bear. Matters are further complicated when the remaining egg hatches and the gosling imprints on the robot. A more maternal possum (Catherine O’Hara) finally finds a task for the flailing Roz: raise the chick to adulthood, including teaching it how to fly.
“I don’t know how to be a mother,” Roz insists.
“None of us do,” says the possum as she balances nine young on her back, “but we make do.”
The mission that follows challenges both Roz and Fink’s “programming.” The robot, for example, has to learn the difference between predetermined benevolence and actual love. How charitable are you if you have no choice but to be nice? Love is a gift, not an order.
While by no means a religious work, there are shades of Christ’s mission in Roz’s personal journey. The animals, once baffled at the concept of sacrifice, soon embrace Roz’s philosophy, and an island that once looked like the Hunger Games can only be described as edenic. There is even a scene ripped straight from Isaiah 11, when the predator learns to lay down with its prey. Christ is the new Adam, redeeming mankind for its folly and showing us a way back to the garden. Roz brings a flake of that to her little island, making her Eve in both the biblical and Wall-E sense.
I’ll confess a certain weakness for “robot gains sentience” stories. Outside the theater I remain quite skeptical of artificial intelligence, which to my limited experience can barely count stop signs, let alone achieve sapient thought. I believe this for moral as well as self-preservational purposes; Hollywood is a creative business which spends approximately 82% of its time devising creative ways to downsize creative staff and their paltry sums. Not only does AI not work, it mustn’t.
Yet I remain a sucker for any robot, cyborg, software, or upstart smartphone who desires a soul, because so often the story of humanity is us trying to lose ours by any means necessary. Who am I to judge a series of 1s and 0s that wishes to contemplate a painting? Too many studios have tasked that same AI with replacing that painter with lesser efforts. I’m not going to reject any attempts at solidarity from the reluctant scabs.
The beauty of “The Wild Robot” is it splits the difference perfectly. Here a robot can indeed become “a real boy” and achieve sentience, but only by developing an immaterial soul and some sense of spirituality. Roz’s love for her adopted son transcends her programming and her material frame, surviving even when her operating system is damaged.
Roz isn’t human; she is metal and silicone and strands of wire. But what is a human but cells interlinked and cushioned with fat? In this imaginary world, she becomes human the same way we all do: by loving. Any animal or machine can take care of itself. It takes a soul, a heart, an adult, a parent, a human, all of the above, to learn to love something more than oneself.
