Wildwood: is it suitable for your child?

Story

Like many teenagers, Prue McKeel (voice of Peyton Elizabeth Lee) thinks she knows better than her parents. She thinks their hippie stories about dark forests, dark secrets and forbidden places are just tales to scare kids.

When Prue’s parents leave her in charge of her baby brother, Mac, Prue promises to keep him inside. But as soon as her parents leave, Prue takes Mac to the playground, and Curtis (voice of Jacob Tremblay), a boy from school with a crush on her, tags along. Prue has taken Mac to the playground before, but something is different this time. An army of crows converges on the area, lifting Mac high into the air and carrying him deep into the forbidden forest.

Determined to save Mac, Prue follows, and Curtis, determined to prove he isn’t useless, comes too. They’re separated when they encounter a pack of coyote soldiers working for a grieving and twisted woman known as the Dowager Governess Alexandra (voice of Carey Mulligan). In her efforts to find the body of her child, Alexandra is inadvertently orchestrating a war among different groups within the mysterious realm of Wildwood.

Curtis ends up as Alexandra’s prisoner when he realises the lengths to which she’s willing to go to reclaim her son. Meanwhile, Prue must traverse the kingdom, navigating shifting political landscapes and winning the trust of bandits and magical figures to outmanoeuvre Alexandra.

Ultimately, Prue is forced to grow from an ordinary teenager into a courageous leader, risking her life in a massive battle to save her baby brother and reunite her family.

Themes

Grief; suicide; trauma; children separated from parents and families; war; betrayal; corruption; magic; revenge

Violence

Wildwood has some violence. For example:

Prue and Mac are nearly hit by traffic.
A flock of evil-looking crows swoops down and grabs Mac, carrying him away while Prue desperately chases after him. At one point, the crows drop Mac. He plummets down towards the town below before the crows catch him in their beaks again and disappear into the forest.
Prue and Curtis are nearly hit by multiple cars, trucks and a train as she pedals furiously on her bike. Curtis, stuck in the cart behind her, knocks into people and things. As Prue pedals straight down a steep hill, Curtis screams, ‘We are going to die!’ Shortly afterwards, a train bears down on them and they’re nearly killed. Prue manages to steer them off the tracks a moment before impact.
A coyote captain attacks another coyote.
A mail truck nearly hits Prue and then hits a coyote.
A large bird suddenly jumps on top of the truck that Prue is in. Other birds begin to attack the truck as well.
Prue is held hostage in the tower of a mansion where she goes to get help for her brother.
Curtis says to the coyotes, ‘Let’s go kill some bandits’.
Curtis and the coyotes come across a battlefield with human bodies and coyote corpses lying all over the ground. One man is still alive, and Alexandra tells Curtis to kill him. Curtis can’t do it, so Alexandra takes a sword and plunges it into the man’s chest.
Staff from a mansion chases Prue as she tries to escape. At one point, a big bronze bird falls and pins some of her pursuers to the ground. Prue runs onto the roof, slips and falls, hitting trees on her way down and landing in a carriage.
When an owl who helps Prue is captured, she’s told that he’ll be imprisoned or worse.
Crows attack Prue and the large bird that’s carrying her. Coyotes begin to chase them. One jumps onto the back of the bird and tries to attack Prue.
Prue tries to fight off an army of birds. She shoots an arrow, and a bird explodes in a ball of feathers.
The bird that’s carrying Prue is shot in the chest with an arrow. Both she and Prue plummet from the sky to the forest floor below. The bird is dead, and Prue is taken hostage by the coyotes, who restrain her and threaten to eat her head off her body.
Curtis and other prisoners are kept in hanging cages above jagged rocks.
Coyotes fight each other with swords.
Alexandra grabs a coyote’s snout and squeezes it ruthlessly.
Coyotes shoot and kill 3 prisoners in the cages, leaving their bodies to rot as their extremities dangle from the bars.
Alexandra plans to sacrifice Mac to bring her son back.
Mac screams as Alexandra carries him while leading an army of coyotes to war.
Alexandra sent coyotes to burn the forests where people live.
Entire communities are terrified that Alexandra will awaken the ivy, because the ivy will choke the life out of everything it touches and kill them all.
A woman slaps Prue.
A coyote army with guns, swords and bayonets shoots at people.
Arrows are shot into the coyote army. Both humans and coyotes begin to fall on the battlefield.
Two sides clash as people and coyotes are sliced, punched, hit, stabbed or run through with axes, swords and knives.
Crows join the attack and peck at the humans.
A man rips a crow in half.
A man is carried away by the crows and dropped onto rocks from a great height.
Other birds join the fight. The air is filled with beating wings and feathers until the crows are finally chased off.
Cannon balls explode on the battlefield, blasting people up into the air or killing them on the spot.
A character is stabbed in the eye.
Another person thrusts a knife at someone’s chest and then stabs him in the head.
Characters are beheaded.
Prue runs into the thick of the fight, where she catches sight of Mac.
A man is shot in the chest.
A vicious coyote chases after Prue.
Curtis is knocked out and then forced to kill a coyote.

Sexual references

Wildwood has some sexual references. For example, a coyote accuses another of peeing on a fire. A coyote then sits down and begins licking his crotch.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Wildwood shows some use of substances. For example, Prue is warned about tea leaves she is meant to drink. She saves the leaves and later brews a tea for her parents to knock them out.

Nudity and sexual activity

Wildwood has some nudity and sexual activity. For example:

An adolescent boy is shown naked from behind as he steps out of his robe and onto the balcony. He stands on the railing as his mother calls to him through the locked bedroom door. Black tears fall from his eyes as he rips something from his chest and jumps from the balcony to his death on the stone patio below. His bare bottom is shown as a crowd gathers around his lifeless body.
Two characters kiss.

Product placement

There’s no product placement in Wildwood.

Coarse language

Wildwood has some coarse language, name-calling and insults. It also includes a reference to satanic symbols.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Based on the novel by Colin Meloy, Wildwood is a dark fantasy that uses both stop-motion animation and digital visual effects. Because of its mature themes and violence, this movie is best suited to viewers aged over 15 years.

These are the main messages from Wildwood:

It’s OK to need help, because you can’t do everything on your own.
Sometimes you have to know when to let go.
A family’s love can give you courage to face your greatest fears.

Values in Wildwood that you could reinforce with your children include courage, love, determination, persistence and hope.

Wildwood could give you the chance to talk with your children about the importance of keeping the lines of communication open so that people can get help if they’re struggling with mental health or thinking about suicide.

You could also talk about the real-life consequences of things like:

betraying the people you’re supposed to love
letting grief consume and twist you and your actions
abusing power and democracy
using violence and fear to get what you want.