Robot Dreams is a Love Letter to New York and Sara Varon from Pablo Berger

Most animated features are riddled with lots of action, dialogue, jokes and music to drive home the narrative.  Based on the graphic novel by Sara Varon, Robot Dreams, director Pablo Berger takes a different route creating a palatable and modern take on traditional animation.  DOG lives in Manhattan and he’s tired of being alone. One day he decides to build himself a companion robot. As their friendship blossoms, the two become inseparable amidst the rhythm and sounds of 1980’s New York City, until one summer night, DOG is forced to abandon ROBOT at the beach. Will they ever meet again and when they do will their affection for one another stay the same or drift apart?

The attention to detail and obvious love letter to New York is evident with every single frame from the street sounds to the small closeted walk-up apartments to nods of famous landmarks like Coney Island and the Strand Book Store.  There are even small easter egg  like Spike Lee on the subway with those notoriously famous subway musicians and drummers in the background, passages of time via seasons and some  creative use of music throughout giving this film character and personality that dialogue could never match.

Watching DOG and ROBOT’s relationship is reminiscent of receiving one’s first pet as a child or purchasing one as an adult for companionship.  Everyone can relate, as well as, be in alignment with the loneliness solitude brings when that presence is no longer visible. I was vividly reminded of taking my dog to the beach where he loved romping through the sand only to galavant toward the Pacific Ocean swimming like an Olympian athlete.  It’s the very place my family scattered his ashes, but our memories of his shenanigans in the water are ever present and to this day brings us all so much joy.  There is something to be said in the old adage, “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have been loved at all.”

September has great meaning for me and in this film.  It is the month I was brought into this world, the month that ROBOT and DOG meet for the first time and the title Earth, Wind & Fire’s  hit serving as a musical backdrop and theme for their unusually gifted friendship. The skating sequence in Central Park is epic and immensely joyful to behold. Yet, we also watch DOG get ghosted by DUCK only to approach healing by reading Stephen King’s ‘Pet Sematary’ which is morbidly comical in more ways than one. Who

Robot Dreams is unexpectedly emotional roller coaster in ways one will never see coming, but the message is clear.  People come into one’s life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  It is up to you to determine which one serves your life in the best way possible in order to move forward with vitality and purpose for the future. For it is in that moment life is truly lived to its fullest potential