Robot Dreams shows how much poignant animation can stand on its own

Last year’s surprise Best Animated Feature nominee, Robot Dreams, is finally available on streaming. So now you too have a chance to have your heart shattered into a million tiny pieces by the world’s most endearing dog-and-robot best friend duo.

Despite its deceptively simple setup and cartoony visual style, Robot Dreams tackles some brilliantly understated yet deeply emotional themes. And director Pablo Berger — who was so moved by the graphic novel that he set out to learn how to make an animated movie just to adapt it — doesn’t shy away from the full impact of the story’s end.

Robot Dreams takes place in a world full of anthropomorphized animals, where lonely Dog decides to order a robot friend. He builds the robot and the two strike up a close friendship, spending an idyllic summer together and jamming out to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.” But a beach day ends with Robot too rusted to move — and when Dog returns the next day, he learns the beach is closed for the summer.

The rest of the movie sees Dog’s attempts to retrieve Robot, while also trying to forge other meaningful relationships in his life. Meanwhile, Robot is stuck on the beach and has visions of escape (and is powerless to do anything when other animals come to scrap up his parts).

One of the things that makes Robot Dreams so special is that there’s no dialogue throughout the entire movie. All of the emotion and the depth of relationships are conveyed through the characters’ actions and their evocative facial expressions and body language. And considering that the main characters are a simply drawn dog and robot, it’s a testament to just how skilled the cartooning is that the movie evokes such big and nuanced emotions — especially with the ending.

[Ed. note: This post contains end spoilers for Robot Dreams.]

By the end of Robot Dreams, Robot has been rescued and restored by a raccoon named Rascal. Dog, similarly, has bought a new robot named Tin. Their paths have diverged so much that even when they do have the opportunity to cross that gap and reunite, both of them separately decide not to.

There’s a few misdirections and near connections: Robot sees Dog walking down the street and dreams of a whole reunion, for instance, before it’s revealed that that meeting is just a dream; Dog sees what could be Robot out of the corner of his eye, but doesn’t make any moves to double check. It’s almost a bit frustrating, since there’s a lot of almosts and not-quites. However, while that might be frustrating to the audience, it works very well to emphasize the anxieties that the characters feel in the moment.

But then Robot hits play on his boombox, and their song plays — “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire — and the two of them dance with their current companions, together again spiritually even if they aren’t physically.

It’s achingly poignant, a reflection on the people we meet at very specific points in our lives who shape us deeply. But it’s also specifically about those friends that we can’t reconnect with, for whatever reason. Berger doesn’t go into the details of why, and for the better, because that makes the theme of old friends drifting apart more universal. There are plenty of reasons why someone wouldn’t seek out an old friend after time apart — fear, diverging life paths, a totally new perspective — but it ultimately comes back to the individual.

Berger leaves that ambiguous, focusing instead on the impact that these two individuals had on one another and how that’s still affecting them to this day. Dog and Robot still hear “September” and dance, just as they once did, even if they’re not knowingly dancing together. Their final dance is a bit of a goodbye, but it’s not entirely sad.

It’s a reminder that no matter what happens to these impactful friendships, they always leave us with something to carry on. And sharing that with a new companion doesn’t diminish the previous relationship; if anything, it’s yet another way to honor that old friendship and carry it forward into a new form.

Robot Dreams is now streaming on Hulu.