Wildwood

Travis Knight’s Wildwood is a generous, affecting fantasy, and we recommend it warmly despite a running time that asks a little too much of a familiar story. Chris Butler adapts Colin Meloy’s novel, with Dario Marianelli providing the music. The film takes growing up seriously and has an evident affection for outsiders. Its animated world rewards close attention, and the characters have enough life to stop that attention wandering away from them.

Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography gives the animated figures a persuasive physical presence. They seem to occupy space rather than merely fill the image, which helps the elaborate surroundings feel like somewhere the characters can inhabit. The production design rewards inspection without turning every image into a hunt for evidence of hard work. Knight keeps the characters readable within it, which matters more than the number of things a fantasy can fit into a frame.

Peyton Elizabeth Lee voices Prue McKeel, Jacob Tremblay voices Curtis Mehlberg and Carey Mulligan voices Alexandra. We were moved by the affection shown to the film’s outsiders. The expressive character animation gives that affection something solid to work with: these figures have enough individuality to deserve more than a general instruction to believe in themselves. There is a maturity to the coming-of-age story that keeps its kindness from becoming a lesson delivered to the family audience.

Butler’s screenplay does not always find surprises to match the animation. Some of the fantasy storytelling is familiar, and at 132 minutes the film gives us time to notice that familiarity. A little more compression would help, particularly when the pleasure of exploring the setting begins to delay the business of getting on with the adventure. The characters keep these passages agreeable, but the slower stretches are where the length begins to count against it.

There are also moments when the computer-generated effects announce themselves too clearly. The contrast is noticeable because the animation elsewhere has such a persuasive physical presence. We would not trade away the film’s scale to remove every trace of digital assistance, but the joins can distract from the characters. It is a modest irritation in a film whose visual pleasures are otherwise so consistent.

Against the demands of family fantasy, Wildwood does the important things well. It offers an unfamiliar place that seems worth exploring, gives its characters room to be odd and makes growing up matter within the adventure. The action has energy, yet the elaborate production design is never the only reason to keep watching. Even when the story follows a recognisable path, the expressive animation provides a reason to stay interested in the characters following it.

Allow the full evening, and resist the temptation to treat the animation as something to glance up at between other tasks. There is too much careful character work here for that. The impatient member of the household may still make a fair point about the length.