After a murder of crows kidnaps her little brother, a young girl ventures into an enchanted forest filled with talking animals and other magical beings, where a looming war will decide everyone's fate.
This is the fanciful tale told in "Wildwood," from the stop-motion animation studio Laika – an ambitious project that took 16 years to make it to the big screen, and already a frontrunner for next year's Oscars.
"To put that in perspective, 16 years ago, Barack (Obama) was then a fresh-faced president in his very first term. Oh, it was a better time, my friends," director Travis Knight said at the film's premiere in Los Angeles.
"This movie exists because hundreds and hundreds of people poured years of their lives into trying to tell the most beautiful story that they could using their hands, using their imagination," Knight explained in an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"That is something that computers can't do," added the filmmaker, who is also the CEO of Laika, the U.S. studio behind "Coraline."
In the age of artificial intelligence, Knight extols the virtues of stop-motion, an animation technique in which the movements of tiny physical objects are captured one frame at a time, to create the effect of fluid motion when played back.
"It is a celebration of humanity because what you're seeing in this film is human creativity, human artistry, human effort on a grand scale," he said.
"Computers can try to emulate things that we've gone through, but a computer has never felt loss. It's never felt joy. It hasn't fallen in love. It hasn't had its heart broken."
"Wildwood" is the story of Prue McKeel, voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, and her quest to rescue her brother, who has been taken by the crows into the Impassable Wilderness – or the forests outside Portland, Oregon, which are hidden from mere mortals.
Along with her friend Curtis, voiced by Jacob Tremblay, Prue discovers a fantastic world, but one in which ambition and grief are fueling discord that could erupt in conflict.
"It is a big sweeping fantasy story," Knight said. "But it also is an exploration of mature themes and profound emotional things that everyone goes through at various times in their lives."
Lee told AFP that Prue's journey resonated for her and recalled some of her own challenges in adolescence.
"I didn't go into a magical forest," Lee joked, but said she did understand "that idea of being a young person that feels so mature and so grown up and feels like they have a really firm grasp on the world and reality, and then it's sort of all put into question."
"And all of a sudden, you have to rethink everything," she added.
Tremblay also said he could identify with Curtis, who tries to emulate the courage he sees in his favorite comic book and game characters.
The actors whose voices are featured in the film also helped shape how their characters move. Their gestures were filmed as they recorded their lines, so that animators could incorporate those mannerisms into the movie.
Angela Bassett, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali and Awkwafina are all part of the cast.
For its technical team, "Wildwood" marks a milestone in terms of the expressions created, and the menagerie of animals featured.
"Every film we've done has been R and D (research and development) for the next one," said animation supervisor Brad Schiff, who explained that the subtleties in facial movement achieved were impossible just a few years ago.
The film, inspired by Colin Meloy's book of the same name, is an ode to Portland, where Laika is based.
"It is a very specific place," said Knight, who lives in the Pacific Northwest city.
"The more specific, the more intimate you make something, ultimately the more universal it becomes."
