Wolfwalkers Review

Toronto Film Festival 2020 | #1 | Wolfwalkers

September has rolled around, and the one film I was most excited for after The Fandom and Tenet, but was unsure if I would actually get to see before the year ended, finally premiered. Toronto Film Festival is currently ongoing, and I got the chance to screen an early virtual premiere of Tomm Moore's newest animated opus Wolfwalkers, and I couldn't be happier with the end results. Wolfwalkers feels like a film that was specifically made for me, with gorgeous, unique animation, a simple yet emotionally effective story with themes that have always resonated with me, and plenty of shapeshifting fun with the titular creatures.

The story follows a young girl named Robyn, an English immigrant to the Irish town of Kilkenny. The English generally seem to be distrusted amongst the citizens of Kilkenny, and that, combined with the strict rule of the town's lord protector, causes Robyn's father to insist that she stay inside and keep her head down, despite her desire to accompany him out into the wilderness beyond the town. Robyn's father is a hunter, tasked with helping to exterminate the wild wolves that live in the forest beyond the town, and Robyn, a fairly capable hunter in training, wants nothing more than to go out and help him.

One day, she manages to sneak out of not only her house, but the town itself, despite children not being allowed beyond the gates. This sets off a chain of events that leads to a fateful encounter with a feral girl named Mebh, whom she discovers to be a wolfwalker; a mythical creature that takes the form of a wolf when sleeping, and leads the pack of wild wolves alongside her mother. The two forge a close friendship, but eventually this leads both of them into incredible danger, as the forces of the Lord Protector - Robyn's overprotective father among them - close in.

The story of Wolfwalkers is admittedly a fairly familiar one to anyone who is caught up on their animated classics, but that doesn't make it bad in the slightest. The film goes to some fascinating places that I don't want to spoil but fell in love with, and its themes are more complex than many of its influences. Whereas Tomm Moore's previous film, 2014's beautiful Song of the Sea, was an incredible piece of Gaelic folklore-infused Studio Ghibli worship, Wolfwalkers plays more broadly with its influences, combining the man vs. nature themes of Hayao Miyazaki's fantasy work such as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke with the wholesome relationship dynamics of 2010's How to Train Your Dragon and the story structure of 90's Disney adventures such as Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas (but without the musical numbers and the racism). Fans of basically any of these properties will doubtless find something to love here.

The story is emotional and gripping, but the true strengths of Wolfwalkers lie in its presentation and characters. The animation continues in the style of Song of the Sea, but whereas that film had very sleek, modern animation (though no less detailed and beautiful), Wolfwalkers feels a bit more like an old fashioned Gaelic fairy tale, with vibrant, detailed vistas of forest landscapes and magical entities, and a sketch-like old timey storybook style that holds the experience thing together. The music is also absolutely gorgeous; imbued with Irish and Gaelic style but without the sort of bombastic Hollywood cliches that a larger budget film might add.

The characters are all incredibly likeable. Robyn is an energetic, eager young girl, but one who is also full of the naivete of childhood, and who is antsy and somewhat depressed from being cooped up all the time. Her relationship with her father is strained; the two of them love each other deeply, but her father's terror at losing her keeps him from ever really listening to her (admittedly, the amount of "No, Robyn, no!" does get somewhat annoying and is probably the film's worst aspect). Mebh is a spunky, anarchic forest child whos disdain for civilization's rules compliments Robyn's internal conflicts wonderfully, and the friendship between the two is incredibly wholesome. These two main characters are some of my favorites of any animated film in recent years, and I suspect that they'll stick with me for some time.

Then, of course, there's the Lord Protector. Unlike the Owl Witch from Song of the Sea, who was more of a complicated character who had found herself in a deep depression, the Lord Protector is a bad person through and through. He is a devout, over-zealous Christian, and believes that it is his god-given duty to tame the wildlands around Kilkenny and crush out all pagan traditions in the process. It isn't rubbed in the audience's face, but there's a clear commentary on the link between colonialism and its ruthless domination of nature and culture and the Christian institutions that ran Europe for much of the past few centuries.

Beyond the larger things, Wolfwalkers is full of little flourishes, beautiful animation, striking images and memorable, emotional scenes that flesh out the experience of watching it. It covers familiar territory in new and interesting ways, adding themes that are easy to follow but also don't insult the audiences of its viewers, even the young ones. It's everything I love to see in a high fantasy animated film, and I loved every single moment of it. This is definitely the best animated film of the year so far, and I can see this easily becoming one of my favorite animated films in recent years; perhaps of all time.