'Robot Dreams' review: A sweetly wistful friendship tale for all ages

It’s one of those strange but immutable truths of the movies that a song like Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” can play in roughly a thousand films before a movie about a dog and a robot comes along and blows them all out of the water.

The animated “Robot Dreams” is wordless, so the songs play an outsized influence in conjuring its whimsical and gently existential tone. But Pablo Berger’s “Robot Dreams,” a 1980s New York-set fable about loved ones who come and go, doesn’t just use “September” for a scene or even two. It’s the soundtrack to the friendship between Dog and Robot (yes, those are the protagonists’ names in this disarmingly simple film), and its melody returns in various forms whenever they’re reminded of each other.

To a remarkable degree, “Robot Dreams” has fully imbibed all the melancholy and joy of Earth, Wind & Fire’s disco classic. Just as the song asks “Do you remember?” so too does “Robot Dreams,” a sweetly wistful little movie that, like a good pop song, expresses something profound without wasting a word.

Very good!（821）