Robot Dreams has had a loooooong journey into theaters. It first debuted at Cannes in May of 2023 (!) and then languished to find a company that would put it to wide release for more than a year, which is when the stochastic terrorist who lives in my home went to see it with their keeper while traveling abroad over the summer last year. The gremlin came back that day with two references that they wanted to callback from the film almost every day for the rest of the summer: 1) the song September by Earth Wind and Fire and 2) a kind of acrobatic move where they’d crawl up my back and sit on my shoulder for me to carry them around everywhere in the house.
It was one of the first times I hadn’t seen the film with them and because about 90% of the things that come out of their mouth is a reference or inside joke to a movie or book we’ve read together, most music decisions are based on the soundtrack from the movie last seen in theaters, and their assumption is that every else has perfect knowledge of their movie catalogue, I kind of kept coming up short asking plot points of a silent arthouse movie to a two year old: “Does this happen in the movie? Why are we doing this?” SO IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I SHOULD SEE THIS MOVIE AND THERE IS NO CLIMBING ONTO SHOULDERS?
Besides that, it’s the perfect devastating way to end your night or week or year in tears. Robot Dreams is, as Wife put it nearly six months ago, “a lot more about loneliness than I was expecting from a cartoon.” It seems preoccupied with the way people fall out of love with each other for reasons completely beyond their control. Dog isn’t a surly misanthrope who needs a cheery optimist to turn that frown upsidedown. He’s genuinely trying to put himself out there. He’s not a shallow Pygmalion either, trying to dominate by creating his perfect mate–we see him sharing and trying to match Robot’s energy on their dates. Dog even tries to step outside of his comfort zone by breaking rules as much he is able until he realizes he has no recourse but to wait. And though there are feelings of anxiety over being replaced or being inadequate to the needs of a friend or lover, there are never any feelings of betrayal in this movie. The kind of loss felt by the two is always paired with gratitude, loyalty, and a duty to those around us who have been kind.
“It’s the spiritual pair to a movie like La La Land,” Wife mused when we finally had time to compare notes. Where a happy ending doesn’t require restoration. But I’m sort of left with a different kind of sadness at the end of the eighteen month journey of learning about and then finally seeing this movie, the feeling of loss associated with not understanding the in-jokes my gremlin was making about this movie, and then having those references wither when I could not sufficiently match the reference, but now the numbness of knowing that no one explained to them what was going on when the Robot spent all winter on the beach, and the long walk home trying to figure out what went wrong and why that’s okay.
Kind of the perfect melancholy movie for a night when you decide not to kill yourself.
