Laika, the stop-motion studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, has finally set a film in its own hometown. Wildwood, adapted from Colin Meloy's novel, follows 13-year-old Prue into the Impassable Wilderness — a magical forest on Portland's doorstep where owls wear waistcoats and eagles loom as large as airliners. Director Travis Knight calls the result an "Oregon's greatest hits" fantasyland, and for travellers who know the state, spotting the real-world references is a big part of the appeal.
The Portland cameos are front-loaded and deliberate. Prue and her friend Mac grab doughnuts from Voodoo Doughnut, her bedroom walls carry The Decemberists posters (fitting, since Meloy is the band's frontman), and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene at a St. Johns art fair features a craftsperson's sign urging buyers to get human-made art before it's gone. Knight says that gag doubles as the film's thesis: a celebration of handcraft in an automated world, which is also a fair description of stop-motion itself — every forest set was sculpted and dressed by hand, with some scenes that flash past in seconds taking years of collective artistry to build.
Beyond city limits, the fantasy realm folds in recognisable Oregon landmarks. Crater Lake and Haystack Rock both appear, reimagined alongside ancient trees and animal kingdoms, and Knight frames the whole thing as an eco-fable rooted in the Pacific Northwest's coyotes, crows and old-growth forest. He grew up on the side of a mountain outside Portland and says the goal was to honour the state's landscapes without turning the movie into a message film.
The production took 16 years from Knight first reading Meloy's manuscript in 2010 to the finished film, with pre-production derailed by the pandemic. His version of Portland on screen is deliberately the city he remembers and loves — a slightly idealised Portland, but one he hopes the real city can grow back into.
For travellers, the film works as an unusually affectionate tourism advert. Anyone who has wandered Forest Park, eaten their way through the food carts or watched pelicans wheel around Cannon Beach will recognise the DNA. And for those who haven't, Wildwood makes a solid case that Oregon deserves a slot alongside Narnia or Middle Earth when you're choosing a place to feel small next to nature.
