Robot Dreams

Pablo Berger’s Oscar-nominated fantasy about friendship is an animated charmer, albeit not for all of the time.

The good news here is that the first third of Robot Dreams is such a total delight that it is no surprise that the film is a contender in the 2024 Oscars. However, there is also less good news and that is because it finds it difficult to maintain the standard set at the start. Nevertheless, it is still something of a triumph for the man who made it, Pablo Berger. He has been making films since 2003 but he is not a prolific director and this is only his fourth feature. Yet, in spite of that, he clearly has a knack for doing the unexpected as was illustrated when he made Blancanieves in 2012. To create a variation of the Snow White story set in his native Spain in the 1920s was a novel idea in itself, but to shoot it as an echo of silent cinema with black-and-white photography and captions replacing spoken dialogue made it a truly remarkable undertaking. Now he astonishes us once again since Robot Dreams, adapted by him from a graphic novel by Sara Varon, is an animated work and that is something that he had never attempted before.

The setting here is New York City in the 1980s and this time the story he tells has neither dialogue nor captions. Furthermore, while the city is evoked with all the enthusiasm that Woody Allen once brought to doing that, this is a world in which the inhabitants are not people but animals. The central figure is Dog who lives alone and misses the companionship so clearly exhibited by loving neighbours. However, an ad seen on TV inspires Dog to order a robot which is quickly delivered and just as quickly assembled. That done, Robot becomes Dog’s companion and in time they go to Ocean Beach together, enter the water and lie in the sand. But it proves to be a fateful trip because Robot becomes rusty and can no longer move. Unluckily the beach is about to be closed for the winter with the reopening as far away as June, but Dog is determined to do all that he can to rescue his friend even if it involves breaking into the enclosed area.

I could forgive anybody for suspecting that this outlandish tale would be saccharine and silly, but from the outset it becomes clear that this will not be the case. Adept as the animation is, the style of it limits facial details yet rather than rendering the faces inexpressive Berger’s feeling for the characters is such that Dog, Robot and the other figures are immensely engaging. Indeed, they are created with the same degree of love that we associate with the work of Aardman Animations. But the success of what is achieved goes beyond that: the film becomes centred on the need for togetherness and out of that emerges what could validly be described as a love story. Because it manages to be sweet and touching instead of sentimental or mawkish Robot Dreams is remarkably involving.

The somewhat less happy aspect of the film lies in the fact that a perfect first segment has been extended to provide two further sections that enable the movie to reach full feature length (102 minutes). The sequences in the middle take us through the months when Dog and Robot are apart. The drawback here is that their companionship is so heartwarming that the film becomes less engaging when the film falls back on showing each of them separately, be it Dog attaining a new friendship when he meets Duck or Robot on the beach dreaming, as when he imagines returning to Dog’s apartment in the East Village. Pleasures in this section are to be found as occurs memorably when a reference to The Wizard of Oz leads into a clever musical number in the style of Busby Berkeley. As for drama, we find Robot at risk when a boat gets into trouble and its crew land on the beach. Yet, although the various scenes here are reasonable enough, they tend overall to feel like fill-in until summer arrives and allows the film to reach its climax.

In the event the finale keeps us in suspense as to how things will work out although what does happen is open to more than one interpretation. But, if Robot Dreams never fully recaptures the impact of its first third, that is partly because such quality is so hard to match. At its best Robot Dreams will bring you joy and it offers musical pleasure too. A notable dance sequence in Central Park features the song ‘September’ by Earth, Wind & Fire and thereafter the film’s music track, one of the most pleasing of recent times, features variations on it that could not be more beguiling.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Dir Pablo Berger, Pro Pablo Berger, Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estapé, Ángel Durández and Jérôme Vidal, Screenplay Pablo Berger, from the graphic novel by Sara Varon, Art Dir José Luis Ágreda, Ed Fernando Franco, Music Alfonso de Villalonga.

Arcadia Motion Pictures/Les Films du Worso/Noodles Production/Lokiz Films/Canal+/Ciné+-Curzon Film Distributors.
102 mins. Spain/France. 2023. US Rel: 22 November 2023. UK Rel: 22 March 2024. Cert. PG.