A little over fifteen years ago, my partner started to read a young-adult fantasy novel written by the frontman of her all-time favorite band, The Decemberists. Colin Meloy released Wildwood into the world on August 30, 2011, and featured illustrations by his wife and longtime collaborator, Carson Ellis. I didn’t think much of it because, as most fans do, you support whatever works of art or endeavors your favorite band members put out there – whether it be books, movies, clothing, TV shows, paintings, or other musical adventures. A week after the book was released, stop-motion animation studio Laika (you may know them as the studio behind Coraline) optioned the novel for a feature film adaptation and fifteen years later, that film has finally come out in theaters nationwide, and I saw it last night with my partner and a friend.
It’s pretty cool to be able to follow the life cycle of a book being adapted into a film from start to finish, but it is especially cool when that movie is stop-motion animation and is also the longest stop-motion film of all time. Animation on certain characters is said to have taken over four years, with production including 136 sets and 231 practical puppets with hand sculpted-models and facial animations being 3D printed with as many as 24 printed faces per puppet per one second of film. The sheer amount of work put into this film seems to dwarf any major blockbuster released this year, save for maybe The Odyssey – it was a labor of love no doubt, and it shows.
This was such a beautiful film to watch and felt so epic in scale at times that I truly felt like it was the stop-motion version of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. There were epic battle scenes with hundreds of characters fighting with sword and shield, bow and arrow, trebuchets, cannons, and lots of fiery explosions. There were coyotes, humans, giants, crows, eagles and more all set in the midst of the foggy woods of Oregon, and never once did I think, “This would be so much cooler if it were live action.” On the contrary: I kept thinking to myself how good of a choice it was to not only animate this story in film but choose to do it in stop-motion as well. There is something to be said about a lot of young-adult stories that translate so much better via animation as opposed to live action…just look at all of the failed attempts at converting Disney classics into live action, or Netflix investing hundreds of millions of dollars into a live action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender just for everyone to say how much better the Nickelodeon animated series is. Turning something from animation into live action doesn’t always mean you’re objectively making it better, which I think is a big issue currently happening within Hollywood; these big wigs who just see dollars and cents don’t understand that animation is more than capable of telling a beautiful and riveting story, oftentimes better than their live action counterparts ever could. All that to say – the right choice was made with Wildwood, and good on them for not only looking to the bottom line for what makes a movie successful.
When it comes to the storytelling side of this movie, I didn’t have much criticism at all – it is a novel written for middle-school aged children, and I think the screenplay succeeded there. There are some very dark elements to the story, but it homes in on some important lessons in independence, communication with the family, bravery, loss, acceptance, and much more. It is mature enough that parents and adults will get just as much out of it as the kids will, without it feeling like it leans too far in either direction. The film does have a PG-13 rating which feels like the right call due to some of the more mature themes that are dealt with, but I think it is a great movie for children and adults to enjoy together.
There are some really fun aspects of this movie I really enjoyed, starting off with the setting of Portland, Oregon. One thing that can always seem to lose me a little with animated movies, especially children’s movies, is the overly fantastical setting in which they take place. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with them, but they usually won’t be able to hold my full attention. With Wildwood, we are dropped right into the very real city of Portland, where we see Voodoo Donuts, Powell’s Books, and even the Unipiper (a very real person in Portland who rides a unicycle wearing a Darth Vader helmet and plays the flaming bagpipes). We also get a scene later in the movie that takes place at the Portland Saturday Market under the Burnside Bridge in the Tom McCall Waterfront Park. There was just something so fun about seeing all of these real places (several of which I have been to) and seeing them reimagined in stop-motion animation and still able to tell a fantastical story that captures the imagination of children and adults alike.
I already touched on this a little bit, but I also really enjoyed the world that they were able to create here – a magical forest just outside of the city that houses talking coyotes and rats, flora and fauna that respond to human interaction, and an all-powerful witch with powers to do incredible things, like bringing people back to life (sort of). Part of what made it so fun for me was that when you actually think about it, it isn’t actually far off from how we actually live. Animals do have the ability to talk and communicate, but just not in the spoken languages we speak (except for parrots). Flora and fauna do respond to human interaction, and if you still don’t think that is true in 2026 then you aren’t taking good enough care of your house plants and the trees in your backyard. It is a fantasy world with magic and talking animals, but it is all so grounded in the world we all live in which made it that much more relatable for me.
If I had to choose something to quibble over, I think I would choose that record-setting runtime mentioned earlier. I am somebody who generally lives by the Horlbeck Century rule, which states that the vast majority of movies could and should be 100 minutes or less. There are exceptions of course, as some stories just need longer to unfold (think The Odyssey, Dune, Avengers: Endgame, etc.), but most movies need to be reined in. In this case, I think we could have reined it in a little bit – 132 minutes (or 2 hours, 12 minutes) to tell this story felt a little overlong for my taste. There are some sequences that could have been trimmed down or entirely cut out without completely losing the thread on the story or flow of the film. That being said, I never actually felt myself sitting in the theater thinking, “Oh boy, this is going on too long, I’m getting bored.” I didn’t love the performance of the voice actor for the main character either, but I think part of that stems from it being performed in a way to keep the younger audience invested and paying attention.
Overall, I really enjoyed this film – it didn’t blow my socks off, but it was far from being boring or a disappointment in any way. It was a marvel to see such a big and bold world created in stop-motion (shoutout to them showing a time-lapse of what it looked like to animate just a few seconds of a scene during the end credits), on top of a delightful, charming, dark, beautiful, and moving story created by Colin Meloy. As of right now, Wildwood sits at the number ten spot on my ranking of 2026 movies, just behind Tony, and right in front of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. If this piques your interest in any way, I highly recommend going to see it in your theater before it moves out.
P.S. – I want to apologize for the lack of writing in 2026 on this page. It has been a tough year mentally and emotionally, and I haven’t had the creative drive that I normally do for this venture, but I am trying to improve that going into 2027. I’ve seen a lot of awesome movies this year and I am bummed I didn’t write about them throughout the year, but I’m hoping that trying to just do smaller write-ups like this one for movies I see in the theater will help me get back on that horse. I know there’s only like four of you who actually read these and you’re probably like “dude, this isn’t that serious, relax.” and I hear you. This is a movie blog in 2026 by some rando guy who knows nothing about film, but I like to give my all to any creative venture I pursue, and I’ve been upset with myself and the lack of writing I’ve done this year. So. Anyways. Thanks for reading, and here’s to (hopefully) more posts coming soon.