The hand-drawn animated film Robot Dreams wants to be charming so badly. Director and writer Pablo Berger deploys a style that is deceptively simple and yet allows him to fill the frame with many cute background details. With a couple notable exceptions, all his characters are anthropomorphized animals, and since the setting is an animal-centric version of New York City, the film sometimes has the feel of Disney’s Zootopia. The key difference between these two films, however, is that Robot Dreams has no dialogue—unless you count grunts, animal noises or the lyrics from pop songs. This is a big gambit, one that could have led to a new a classic, and yet Berger ultimately does not have the imagination and invention to sustain his conceit. A heartfelt, bittersweet ending cannot obscure the fact that this is nothing more than a bloated short film.
Berger goes through great pains to remind us that his version of New York City is set in the late twentieth century. There are many shots of the World Trade Center, almost to the point of distraction, and it’s enough to make you wonder if there’s a deeper meaning behind this. There is ample time for the mind to wander because Berger opts for a gentle, almost lethargic pace. His point of entry is Dog, a lonely New Yorker who passes the time in his apartment by eating microwave dinners and playing video games (he does not seem to have a job). One day he sees a TV ad for a robot companion, and he decides to order one. After Robot arrives at his doorstep, he and Dog form an instant connection. They do everything together, wandering Central Park and exploring the city. A day at the beach proves disastrous: Robot loses power, and Dog cannot move him because he is too heavy. When Dog returns the next day, the beach is fenced shut. The best friends have no choice but to wait until next summer to reunite.
At first, the lack of urgency in Robot Dreams is an asset. Berger is in no rush to advance any kind of dramatic tension because he has clear affection for his world and characters. Some of the animals are well-matched for their vocation, like an octopus who plays the drums. This lackadaisical pace also allows for much more detail than we typically expect from an animated film. Some shots have so many characters and so much movement that it seems like a Where’s Waldo? book come to life. After a while, though, this lack of urgency is more of a hindrance. There are many, many scenes where the audience will get to the point faster than the film arrives at it, whether it’s a scene of Robot and Dog learning the contours of their friendship, or another montage of their idyllic time together. Action and facial expressions are important ways to communicate emotion, and yet they only go so far.
Once Robot and Dog separate, Berger leans on repetition. There are several mini dramas where we see the two characters cope with their time apart, like when Dog develops a relationship with Duck, or Robot imagines escape from his sandy prison (hence the title). None of these attempts at happiness prove satisfactory, and while there is some variation in how they resolve, we are still watching a closed loop of storytelling. The protagonists are too static to advance, and when we already know the outcome, Robot Dreams grinds into tedium.
The film finally starts to resolve, and Berger teases their reunion, finally allowing for the kind of tension found in romantic comedies where we are desperate for a happy ending. Still, the damage has already been done, with Berger striving for a poignant resolution that is ultimately inert, rather than heartfelt. A zippy montage, a technique frequently deployed by Disney and Pixar animation at their height, could have sped up a tedious, borderline overwrought middle section. With an animation style that owes more to Rocko’s Modern Life than anything else, the formal qualities lack the technical wonder needed to draw our attention.
Like the unspoken callback to the 9/11 attacks, Robot Dreams borrows heavily from humankind and asks us not to think too much about it. The most important example is how Robot and Dog bond over “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. These characters create a memory to this song so that when they hear it again, all that feeling and emotion comes rushing back. At least, that’s what should be happening, except the film’s gentle, unhurried nature means all suspension of disbelief has been lost. A film can avoid the immersion problem by being so fast paced that we cannot stop and think, or so brief that we have no time for lingering thoughts. Robot Dreams does neither.
Photo courtesy of NEON
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