A word of warning: this is a slightly different kind of review. I took my son, a massive fan of The Wild Robot book series, to see an advance screening of the film with me. So, there will be a paragraph with his reaction to include a 10-year-old kid’s perspective on this family feature. The rating and rest of the text are mine, though. Sorry, you have to deal with my usual nonsense to get the real opinion that matters.

Sometime in the future, a robot awakens on a beach. “She’s” surrounded by broken crates and other debris makes it clear that this was not an intended destination. Programmed to be of service, she attempts to get any of the island’s denizens, all animals, to give her a task. Even after an intense software update gives her the ability to understand and speak the language of the animals, none of them will give her something to do.

Soon, though, an accident provides the task. After falling down a hill, thanks to the animals’ cruelty, the robot crushes all but one goose egg in a nest. Unaware of what the eggs are or the process of imprinting, she unintentionally is in the right place, at the right time, to become the newly hatched gosling’s defacto mother. Now she has a task, one that she has no programming for and only the vaguest idea of what to do. Like all new moms. Or parents, for that matter.

Despite being a movie squarely aimed at children—and absolutely appropriate for them—The Wild Robot is grounded in themes that adults more often grapple with. Specifically, the tradeoffs of parenting and joining a community. There’s also a heaping helping of “be yourself” in the mix, but that’s pretty classic for children/family entertainment. Besides, the first two themes feel far more central to the story than the latter.

Through Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), the titular robot, audiences see the pros and cons of parenting and community building literalized. Despite being extremely durable, parenting breaks down Roz’s body. Damage also brings exhaustion, a state implied to be largely foreign to the robots. There is emotional strife as well. Not only does Roz have to grapple with her adopted son Brightbill (Kit Connor) growing up, she has to alter and refine her approach to communication to connect with him in a way that is effective and helpful.

On the community front, attempting to build community frequently results in physical and emotional degradation as the animals of the forest attack her and belittle her as “a monster.” You see the same for other creatures as well. Other geese bully Brightbill. Paddler (Matt Berry), the beaver, is mocked as a bizarre obsessive by nearly everyone else. Fink (Pedro Pascal) is a pariah. Even when the community comes together, there’s in-fighting, a decreased lack of personal space and freedom, and increased demands. On the other hand, everyone is safer and treated with increased kindness and respect.

The Wild Robot might be seeing things through thicker rose-colored glasses than most. Still, it’s a surprisingly nuanced take. As a result, the film has a notably bittersweet tone throughout. There’s joy in the sadness and sadness in the joy each step of the way. In the end, it comes out firmly in favor of one way of being over another—take a guess which—but until then, it does give both sides a surprisingly fair shake.

As with all modern animated films, there is a debate to be had about the casting. Should well-known live-action actors be cast over experienced voice performers? It’s certainly worth exploring, but—fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your overall opinion—Nyong’o makes the debate moot in her case. Her ability to take Roz from a machine devoid of internal motivations to a fully sentient being is impressive. It becomes even more evident when she voices another machine of the same model, Rozzum, who has not experienced all that Roz has.

Pascal’s work as the flippant but deeply emotionally wounded fox isn’t as strong, but some of it seems to be in the writing. He’s given a couple of fairly tin-eared moments to drive home his real feelings. He plays them well, but they’re too unsubtle to be overcome. Berry, on the other hand, uses his bigger-than-life voice in some surprisingly tricky ways to give the broadly comedic beaver a sucker punch of heart now and then. Bill Nighy’s goose patriarch, Longneck, and Stephanie Hsu’s spookily upbeat squid-like robot, Vontra, are other standouts. The latter’s performance further benefits from the visuals. Vontra’s slippery movements and constant touching are both alien and familiar in ways that make the stomach churn.

Speaking of visuals, The Wild Robot is beautiful. While not as inventive as recent offerings like Mutant Mayhem or Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, every composition is arresting. However, fans of the book hoping for a similar style may feel disappointed. The minimalist work of the novels, while certainly striking in its own right, is not how the aesthetic the creative team chooses. Nonetheless, big moments like the wall of butterflies and small ones like Fink noticing robot fluid on fresh snow suggest this more intense and detailed approach was the right one.

And now without further adieu, my son, Prince Gajjito, edited slightly for space and clarity:

“I loved it, it was awesome! They gave a Fink a lot bigger role, but I think that was smart. You can’t have a movie be as quiet as a book. You need more talking. There were some other changes, too, but I didn’t mind any of them. I don’t think they missed anything important. You know how sometimes you’ll see a movie about a book and they don’t have the one thing you wanted to see? They got in everything I wanted to see. It was really good. I even almost cried.”

Yeah, me too, bud. ALMOST cried. Definitely just almost.

The Wild Robot will imprint on people everywhere in theatres starting September 27.

The Wild Robot Trailer: