Directed by Chris Sanders, who gave us Lilo & Stitch and How To Train Your Dragon, his new animated feature, The Wild Robot, has the potential to take home an Oscar next year. And if you’re looking for a film that can stand as its spiritual cousin, I’d nominate The Iron Giant as the one that best fits that description. Wild Robot is a film that has so much heart; the storyline and lush painting-like animation will win you over.

Those who have watched the trailer will be familiar with the premise: a universal dynamics shipment of helper robots ends up on a remote, uninhabited human island. One robot, Rozzum 7134, survives and, not knowing better, seeks out his purpose to assist and be of help - and, of course, is rebuffed by all the wildlife found on said island. Somehow, Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) saves one goose egg, and when it hatches, the gosling imprints itself on Roz, thinking the robot is its mother.

The gosling turns out to be a runt, making it difficult for Roz to ‘train’ the gosling to swim and fly. With migration time fast approaching, it becomes a race against odds and time, to make Brightbill (Kit Connor) take off. There’s a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), Pinktail the mommy opossum (Catherine O’ Hara), a bear (Mark Hamill), the head goose (Bill Nighy), and a beaver (Matt Berry), who together make up the main cast of characters that interact with Roz.

What the trailer didn’t provide, is an inkling of the layers of narrative that propel the screenplay, the more than cavalier attitude towards death in nature, and the depth of emotion that carry this film to such storytelling success. The humor alone, centered on death in the wilderness is priceless. And along the way, we have a sterling reflection on parenting, the inadequacies in life we have to rise above, and destiny.

The animation is a melange of old-school style with CGI, making each frame look like a naturalistic painting coming to life. You’ll especially be astounded by the butterfly sequence.

As for that fatalistic humor I was talking about, it’s best delivered by Pinktail, the opossum with seven, no six, back to seven, babies. How practically every animal in the wild is a predator is touched on, and a source of laughs - as surprising as that may sound.

The Wild Robot is my front-runner now for Best Animated Feature, and if you have a chance, watch it at an IMAX theater to enhance your appreciation of the animation design and execution.