I went to see a movie with my dad and Bryce this weekend. The movie was Wildwood, a dark fantasy stop-motion animated movie that took six years to make. It's the same studio that did Coraline, which I loved.
I had some issues with the movie. I am going to reveal a plot point that is a bit of a spoiler since it explains some things. If you don't wish to know, click away from me!
Did you click away?
Last chance...
**SPOILERS BELOW**
OK. So basically, the premise of this movie (which is based on a book by a singer/songwriter that I actually have in my classroom library but hadn't read, and ridiculously I noticed that AT THE END CREDITS) is this:
- Hippie Dippie family lives in Portland, Oregon consisting of a very tired looking mom, a beanie-wearing dad, a maybe 15 year old girl, and a maybe 18 month old boy. Portland is (realistically) weird, but (unrealistically) has a bridge to the I.W. -- the Impassable Wilderness. No one can go there. Or rather, no one has ever returned.
- Hippie Dippie family have many rules around the little boy -- DON'T TAKE HIM OUTSIDE. This is weird, but then they go to a craft fair and the girl (who is delightfully cynical and wry) is left to babysit her baby brother. Hint: she doesn't stay at home.
- Baby brother loves the park, which clearly Prue (the girl) has taken him to before. Except this time, there is a giant flock of crows that comes and steals the baby and Prue (with a dweeby D&D boy named Curtis who talked her ear off in the playground) must speed on her bike to try to find him.
- Guess where he ends up? IN THE IMPASSABLE WILDERNESS.
Thus starts an odyssey where Prue somehow can get into the wilderness when no one usually can, and she and Curtis go on an adventure to rescue her baby brother. Many talking animals, although more Watership Down than Zootopia. It is DARK fantasy. There's a subplot involving Frankensteining a lost child back using dark magic. There's evil noblewomen and noble bandits. There's an epic battle scene that has echoes of Lord of the Rings.
But the part that pissed me off?
**HERE'S TRULY WHERE SPOILERS COME IN**
When Prue returns home without her brother, thinking he's gone, and finds her parents crying in the kitchen, she sneaks downstairs and apologizes for this situation that is all her fault. And then the backstory starts. There are family secrets. It's not her fault at all.
The parents fell in love at university and moved to a house by the Impassable Wilderness in Portland. They had everything except... you guessed it... a BABY. That just isn't happening. They do acupuncture, holistic medicine, Western medicine, EVERYTHING, and it leaves them childless. OHHHH NOOOOO THE HORRORS! So they hear of a witchy lady who might be able to help them with magic. They go and this witchy lady says, "I can get you what you want. It's just a matter of how far you're willing to go and how much you want it."
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE. I literally had a disreputable fertility doctor (in my eyes anyway) say, "I can get you pregnant. It's just a matter of how far you're willing to go and how much you want it." Needless to say, we didn't go to that clinic and I was annoyed, saying "You can't actually promise me that." And, my hysterectomy proved that pretty much I was never going to carry successfully. Harrumph.
So anyway, of course they take the bell that the witchy lady gives them and they go to the ominous foggy bridge to the Impassable Wilderness, and have to decide to ring it or not.
They ring it, and here comes an otherworldly beautiful lady (the baddie Prue has encountered) who says she will totally get them "with child," and they will have a healthy baby. Then their second healthy baby, which she promises, has a catch. They have to turn it over to her when she comes for the baby. The dad is like "NO WAY CRAZY LADY!" But the mom is like, "what if it works? I can't not do this and always wonder if we could have had our family. I can make sure we don't have a second kid! We can fool this MAGICAL SORCERESS LADY!"
They say yes, the sorceress lady boops the mom on the belly with her finger, and POOF Prue was conceived. And as the parents are telling her this insane story, she is like, YOU LIED TO ME! YOU DID NOT TELL ME MY ORIGINS! WTF, PEOPLE! Which is a very realistic reaction.
Anyway, the baby brother was always destined to be stolen back to the sorceress, who has some truly diabolical plans.
During this whole scene, I was hissing WHAT. THE. FUCK. and laughing with Bryce at the ridiculousness. I gave double birds to the screen (sorry, people behind me). I whispered, "See? I could have been worse. I could have been so single-minded that I made a deal with a fucking witch."
And then, the kicker. The parents are like "it was all worth it so we could have our family." And then the dad says, "sometimes you just have to know when to let go." (meaning letting Prue do her thing to right the wrong of the twisted fairy tale situation). All I could think was yes, and your story is not illustrating that! You didn't let go! You put BOTH your kids in mortal danger and your daughter is probably part sorceress! AAAAAAA!
Ok, rant over. I know this is a consistent fairy tale trope. There is always a childless couple, there is always a deal with someone to remedy the childlessness that ends poorly. I just wasn't expecting it in this movie.
The movie has really high ratings, which is confusing to me. It's beautiful visually, just stunning. But the storyline leaves something to be desired. There's a LOT of talking. There seems to be a lot of cribbing from other fantasy stories, especially Lord of the Rings. The dialogue is stilted. I liked Prue, and I liked Curtis, but everyone else annoyed me.
So, if you see Wildwood, be warned it has a huge gaping infertility piece to it. And let me know what you think about it, because I'm dying to know if I am this weird outlier who didn't love it.
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