Nominated for the 2024 Oscars as best animated film, alongside much more renowned titles such as Nimona, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse And The boy and the heron, My robot friend has attracted attention for its way of telling important and profound themes with the sole power of narration and staging, making functional use of animation.
The film is based on the children’s comic of the same name by American Sara Varon, published in 2007 by First Second. We are in the 1980s, in New York. In a world populated by anthropomorphic animals, a dog lives his life suffering terrible loneliness. For this reason he decides to buy a robot, with which he forms a great friendship. However, a series of events lead the two to remain forcibly separated for a long period, in which they will have to learn to look for new ways to find their happiness without each other.
The Italian title My robot friend it diminishes the strength of the original one, which is RobotDreamsrobot dreams. The dream dimension is a particularly relevant factor: when the two characters find themselves alone, one distant from the other, they both dream. They dream of different stories, paths in which they become happy again. Here the desire for a utopian quest is consumed, in which happiness is reduced to being an abstract, intangible dimension.
In reality, the attempts of the dog and the robot to alleviate their loneliness are frustrated by the belief that the other is the missing element for achieving happiness, the factor with which to eliminate the sense of loneliness. But happiness, as they both will discover, materializes only in the strength to overcome traumas, to desire a future for themselves.
The conceptual corpus of My robot friend it consists of micro narratives within a larger structure. And, perhaps, this is the most obvious limitation of a film that is nevertheless valuable. Because, especially in the second act, one has the feeling that the film plods along, drags on a bit without a real narrative sense. The film could have lasted less without suffering in terms of emotional involvement.
The director’s choice Pablo Berger follows the one made for one of his previous films, Blancanieves, a film shot in black and white, in a square format and completely silent. In an evident desire for formal experimentation, Berger has instead chosen to tell his story here, renouncing 3D and opting for a more classic 2D and without having his characters say any words.
My robot friend it remains anyway an engaging film, also because the characters, although they have animal features, are profoundly human. Berger placed the emphasis on small gestures of intolerance, lack of empathy, lack of respect towards others, and then increased the feeling of isolation of the two protagonists. Only in kindness will they find a way to finally be happy, despite everything.
Then there is the choice to set the story in New York in the 1980s, where the director lived for a period of his life. On more than one occasion, the Twin Towers appear as a symbol of a now forgotten past, the echo of a world now dissolved. But in this desolation, which as in other fairy tales (Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz) is dotted with evil of various kinds, the story of a dog and a robot who loved each other and found the strength to be happy teaches us that everything is possible if kindness and empathy dictate our gestures.
Read also: “Coraline and the Magic Door”, about magic, horror and becoming adults
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