Wildwood is an impossible film about confronting the impossible: the impossibility of moving on after a sudden tragedy; the impossibility of giving up on the ones you love; the impossibility, sometimes, of conception; the impossibility of magic. The feats of stop-motion animation Wildwood pulls off are breathtaking, mystifying; it is, without a doubt, a new standard-bearer for the art form. It’s such a joy to watch that even minor quibbles about its overstuffed plot and abundance of themes—not all of which get enough attention—fall into the background because you simply don’t want to leave its world.

The film, directed by Laika co-founder and CEO Travis Knight, follows Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a teenager whose charming hippie parents (Maya Erskine and Jake Johnson) are oddly overprotective of her baby brother, Mac (Arthur Knight). When Prue’s parents leave her alone to babysit Mac, they warn her not to take him outside, but, of course, she does. Their trip through the quirky streets of Portland, Ore., quickly becomes a nightmare when a murder of crows kidnaps Mac and carries him off to the Impassable Wilderness, a magical forest on the edge of town from which Prue’s father has always warned her away. Prue and her classmate, Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), set off into the Impassable Wilderness to rescue Mac, where they must unite the forest’s disparate factions to take down Alexandra (Carey Mulligan), the Dowager Governess, a witch who practices dark magic as an outlet for her grief.

Along the way, we meet several other forest residents, including Brendan (Mahershala Ali), a human and the leader of a group of bandits; Owl Rex (Richard E.

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