Wildwood

Prue McKeel's infant brother is carried off by crows into a forbidden forest on the edge of Portland. Prue and her classmate Curtis go in after him — and arrive in a world the city takes no notice of: bandits, talking animals, avian principalities and a war in the making. In a manor house they meet a woman who lost her son, and about whom it remains unclear for a long time whether she is helping them or using them. The film is based on Colin Meloy's 2011 novel — the book by The Decemberists' singer, illustrated by Carson Ellis.

Building that forest was the harder part. Wildwood is the longest stop-motion animated film ever made: a hundred and thirty-two minutes, 136 sets and 231 puppets — real figures, moved by hand, with 3D printing used for the puppets' armatures and musculature and even for simulated water. Laika optioned the novel in September 2011, weeks after it came out; production began in 2021. Fifteen years passed between the idea and the premiere, and according to the director this was the studio's hardest undertaking yet: before they could tell the story, they had to build the tools and the technology for it.

Laika is the studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link, and Travis Knight directed Kubo. Wildwood is new for them in two respects: it is their first film set in their own city, Portland, and the first to receive a PG-13 rating in the United States. That last point is not incidental: this was not made for the youngest children but for older children and adults.

The voices behind it are an unusually strong line-up. Peyton Elizabeth Lee speaks Prue, Jacob Tremblay Curtis, Carey Mulligan the woman of the manor and Mahershala Ali the bandit king. A giant golden eagle speaks with Angela Bassett's voice, a coyote with Tom Waits's, an old owl with Richard E. Grant's, a rat with Awkwafina's; alongside them Charlie Day, Jemaine Clement, Amandla Stenberg, Maya Erskine and Jake Johnson can be heard. Caleb Deschanel, the much-nominated cinematographer who has until now worked in live action, shot the film; Dario Marianelli wrote the score, his third for Laika.

The world premiere took place on 11 October at the BFI London Film Festival, and the film also screens at Sitges and at Alice nella Città in Rome; the American release is 23 October. Variety's review called it Laika's most ambitious work to date and described it as a richly textured, transportive fairytale epic. The two trailers together drew around a hundred and eighty million plays — the largest trailer launch ever achieved by a film made entirely in stop motion.