Robot Dreams

It is simplistic, yet well worth the watch. The movie is able to carry a story for approx. 90min using only animation and music. The lack of dialogue is a clever choice that makes this film easily markettable in multiple languages, while the setting is clearly New York.

In the story, a lonely dog living in a world of anthropomorphic animals, buys a robot kit and assembles a friend. Through a contrivance, the two are seperated and end up living their own lives. I found this part of the narrative frustrating. There separation was a literally chain link fence. I could not suspend my disbelief that Dog could have easily reunited. But for the sake of the story, they needed a reason why the two best friends would have to live apart and discover life goes on.

In another frustrating scene, Robot sees Dog and questions if he can intrude back into his life? Both had moved on. It was enough for Robot to see Dog doing well and not have to reconnect or intrude. It was as if people can only have one friend at a time. Instead of being a story about how people grow together and grow part, but we keep the friendships and the memories; it was a story about being able to only have one best friend at a time. So while it was sweet, it we weirdly isolating.