Editor’s Note: This review originally ran as part of our coverage of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, and we’re re-publishing it with the film’s wider release. Check out our extensive review slate of TIFF 2023, revisit our official preview and complete archives of prior editions.
There are precious few Western-animated adaptations of modern-day comics that are worth the paper on which the source materials were printed. By “comics,” I’m referring to the phenomenon known as the “graphic novel” industry, which is verbiage meant to protect the adult reader’s ego from the fact that they’re somehow, some way, enjoying stories that were once consumed primarily by children, much like how they printed up adult-looking copies of the last Harry Potter book so that folks wouldn’t feel goofy devouring Deathly Hallows on the tube. But most modern sequential art should, theoretically, be easy to translate on the screen. Most adaptations head straight for the comfy (though expensive) confines of live-action and subsequently miss the point of the entire endeavor in how poorly they realize a given story’s aesthetic, and the ones that are animated –Persepolis, for instance – come about as often as Halley’s Comet does. Hell, it’s more likely that a cartoonist interested in transitioning into directing animated films will just go on and make their own original-concept films rather than bring one of their established texts to the screen. Both mediums are more popular on these shores than they ever have been, with a wider variety of forms accepted as standard than one could have imagined even twenty years ago, and it’s bizarre that, say, there’s not someone banging down Jeff Lemire or Matt Kindt’s doors and asking them if they can faithfully adapt their works, craggy faces and all.
When these kinds of confluences combine, you wind up with a film like Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams, which is about as lovely as a Western cartoon can get these days: It’s a delightfully light and joyous film, rich with color and detail that, like the Sara Varon comic it’s based on, seizes what its medium can bring to the cultural party and, in the process, reminds the viewer of just how goddamn good it can be. Set in an unspecified dated yet specifically detailed NYC at some point in the ‘80s, Robot Dreams documents a year in the life of Dog, a little pooch whose idea of a fun Friday night consists of playing Pong (with one hand operating each controller) on his couch, eating a Banquet Macaroni and Cheese microwave dinner at his empty dining room table, and being reminded of just how empty his apartment feels and how fucking lonely he is every time he channel surfs, with each ad feeling like some sort of an insult. But tawdry advertising and cheap programming prove to provide the solution to his problems: A mail-order Robot, who arrives a few days after he places an order. He puts the machine together and switches him on, and to his delight (and the horror of all the pigeons observing from his windowsill), Robot rises, eager to meet his new best friend. They share a few weeks of bliss together – rollerblading in Central Park, sharing snacks, playing goofy little games – until they take a fateful trip to the beach.
That day, after sharing a nap in the afternoon sun, Robot wakes up and discovers that he can’t move. His battery’s been drained by all the fun of the day, and the sun’s a-setting, meaning that the cops are pushing everyone away from the sand and back to their cars. Dog frantically tries to move his best bud, but he’s just not strong enough to move him, and the sand doesn’t provide any leverage. So, Robot lets him know it’s alright if he heads home: he knows he’ll be back. So, the next day, Dog sets out to the beach, bringing a giant toolbox and having absorbed tons of knowledge from various robot repair books, and discovers, with horror, that the beach has been closed for the season. He tries to sneak in but is chased off by a bull (literally, a security guard/cop who also happens to be a bull). He comes back with bolt cutters and manages to cut half of the lock but is arrested and hauled downtown. There’s no way that he can get back in there, and it is eating him alive with shame and regret. He resolves to go and get him as soon as he can – June 1, as he notes to himself on a scrap of paper posted high on the fridge – and spends the year trying to find some sort of way to soothe his troubled soul. Meanwhile, as Robot lies on the beach, he dreams of how he might one day be able to leave. Will a group of crew-rowing bunnies save him? Will he just magically, one day, be able to walk? Will he ever see Dog again? Or will he have replaced him?
What makes Robot Dreams so uniquely delightful is how thoroughly realized Berger’s world is – every frame is crammed full of recognizable styles and symbols from that era, each embodied by fabulously creative anthropomorphized animals, accentuated by a genuine sense of place. Look closely in the background at a newspaper box, and you’ll see the iconic “Headless Body in Topless Bar” issue of the post. Look at a crowd-watching Robot and Dog do a sync-skate routine to “September” (perhaps the only time that song has been used to fantastic ends in a movie, and it’s established as a kind of motif here), and you’ll see extras from Breakin’. Hell, Berger even recreates Wrestlemania III, as a tiger Hulk Hogan takes on Andre the Giant – observed with astonishment by a young crocodile dressed in full Lucha regalia. It’s splendidly colorful, making the deep feelings packed in beneath the surface all that more potent, no matter if they’re ones of ebullience or depression. There’s just something pleasing waiting for you at every twist and turn, even in the rougher moments, and the film feels like a deep embrace with a long-absent friend, with trepidation and sadness giving way to a cathartic acceptance.
Even more impressive is how well it captures the experience of stumbling upon a new favorite comic at your comic book shop or local library and tearing into it – especially if, say, you’re reading it on the floor at your local big-box bookstore (real heads know) – falling more and more in love with the distinct pleasures of this colorful medium and all of its quirks. Robot Dreams can feel kind of strangely paced, and it seems to wallow in some of its more depressing moments a bit too long, but I began to appreciate this the more I thought about it: those are, in fact, the moments that you pay a sort of closer attention to. If sequential art is centered upon self-pace as much as it is oriented around its page layouts, Berger does a swell job preserving an approximation of how most read their comics, and he never loses sight of the fact that he’s adapting a tale from one visual artform to the other. There’s no dialogue in Robot Dreams (though there is sound, obviously), forcing you to pay attention to its imagery to properly experience it. Look away at your own peril because you might miss out on something blissful.