Robot Dreams

**Robot Dreams: When a Dog and a Robot Break Our Hearts**

New York, 1984. A lonely dog buys a robot by mail with assembly instructions. What starts as a DIY manual turns into a friendship so pure it hurts. *Robot Dreams* (2023), the Spanish animated film that swept the Goya Awards —Best Animated Film—, is not just a tale about machines and pets. It's a mirror of urban loneliness, of those bonds we build when the world seems too big.

Director Pablo Berger adapts Sara Varon's graphic novel with a color palette that oscillates between 80s nostalgia and adult melancholy. There are no villains, no spectacular chases, or grandiose dialogues. Just two characters —a dog named Dog and a nameless robot— trying not to get lost in a city that ignores them. The genius lies in the small things: a dance on the beach, a summer that fades away, a reunion years later. Scenes that weigh more than any speech.

What's coolest about *Robot Dreams* is its honesty. It doesn't force tears or sugarcoat reality. Dog and the robot love each other, but life —with its non-stop trains, closed beaches, and tired owners— separates them. And that's the punch: friendship doesn't always win. Sometimes, it just stays in memory.

It's not a film for kids, although kids will understand it. It's a film for anyone who's felt that time passes too quickly. For those who know that the best endings aren't the happy ones, but the ones that leave you thinking about what could've been. And boy, does *Robot Dreams* achieve that.

A robot-dog friendship that hurts even more.