The Oscar nominee Arco holds out hope for the post-post-apocalypse

The French film offers a bleak commentary on where humanity is headed — but it still comes with a hopeful message

According to the French animated film Arco, humanity's current trajectory will result in some dark, disconnected times in half a century, if we aren’t there already. Yet in spite of the negative forecast for the not-so-distant future, the Best Animated Feature nominee leaves viewers with a sense of optimism about humankind’s long-term prospects. That, combined with its imaginative visuals and sense of childlike fantasy, makes the movie a rewarding experience.

Arco, now in theaters, was executive produced by Natalie Portman and is the feature-length directorial debut of animation studio founder Ugo Bienvenu, who co-wrote the film with Félix de Givry. It centers on a young girl named Iris, a kind, caring, responsible kid who is largely unhappy in the unhappy times she’s living in.

On Earth in 2075, robots have significant roles in most people’s daily lives. In a world that seems clean and orderly but noticeably underpopulated, they’ve become the police officers and teachers. A lot of child-rearing duties are left to the robots as well: A robot named Mikki cares for 10-year-old Iris and her baby brother Peter. Their busy parents spend their weeks working in the city, only appearing to their children via hologram projectors, and only returning home on the weekends. Iris’ parents don’t seem uncaring, they’re just absent, which seems to be commonplace in 2075.

As for the robots, while there are sometimes vibes that this is a robot-run future, the structure of society isn't entirely clear. Instead, it seems that people are just plodding along during an era that seems clean and futuristic, but is actually quite lonely and hazardous.

In Iris’ time, life still functions much like our own, and technology has continued to advance, with flying cars, fun scooters that even kids can use to commute, and cool-looking robots. Adults have jobs and kids go to school, but the reality of this world creeps up in worrying details. Even beyond Iris’ parents, nearly everyone is overworked and disconnected.

The world is also ravaged by pollution and wildfires that burn every night with deadly ferocity. The fires are so bad that every home is encased in a glass dome at night, to keep families safe. Schools and other buildings are preserved inside domes as well. While people don’t appear to be starving, it's clear that there are food shortages: When Iris is shopping in a supermarket, she hears an PA announcement about rations.

Clearly, the 2075 of Arco is an extension of our own time. Despite all the advancements we’ve achieved here in 2026, it hasn’t freed up any time for us. People are paradoxically always working harder and longer hours, while also being overreliant on technology. In the film, it only seems like these problems are exacerbated, with robots doing the jobs parents and community members should handle, while the adults are just trying to keep up with their own busy jobs. 2075 feels hopeless, but that hopelessness feels also very normal, just a part of daily life.

Then a boy named Arco crash-lands in Iris’ time. In Arco’s distant, unspecified future, the human race has been lifted off of Earth, not into space, but in gigantic tree-like structures where each branch is a platform supporting a home. While Arco says that the oceans rising forced this change somewhere between Iris’ time and his, there’s a real beauty to the structures, which allow every family to live serene, agrarian lives, complete with livestock and planting.

And while 2075 feels futuristic in a technological sense, Arco’s distant future feels a lot more like magic, particularly when it comes to the most fantastic of future technologies: time travel. In Arco’s time, time travel is achieved through caped, rainbow-colored leotards powered by a crystal. Only citizens 12 and older are allowed to use the time-travel suits, but 10-year-old Arco decides to sneak out and try on his sister’s suit for the most age-appropriate reason ever: He just wants to go into the past to see some dinosaurs. Unfortunately, his inexperience causes him to crash in 2075 and lose the crystal, stranding him.

Bienvenu’s sense of whimsy uses 2D animation to its fullest potential, especially in the time-travel sequences. Not only is the use of a crystal-powered leotard far different than any other means of time travel we’ve seen before, when a time traveller really gets going, they’re usually represented by what looks like a shooting star followed by a rainbow streak. It’s a simple effect that conveys a real sense of wonder, for the audience and especially for Iris.

Taking place in two different future time periods — both the bleak 2075 and the more peaceful distant future — Arco cleverly achieves something counterintuitive with the closer of those two eras. In so many movies about the future, the setting is meant to feel far away. Blade Runner’s 2019 setting felt impossibly distant from its 1982 release date. When Marty McFly travels to 2015 in 1989’s Back to the Future Part II, it feels like a far-future era. Neither of those futures panned out in real life the way they did on screen, but Arco’s 2075 feels uncomfortably close to where we are now.

What feels distant and far-off is Arco’s time, which Bienvenu only offers a glimpse of in the movie’s beginning. It seems calm and almost utopian, but not in a way that feels false or unrealistic. In Arco’s era, it feels like humanity has learned the lessons of hitting rock bottom, and has collectively decided to simplify their lives by returning to a way of life where technology doesn’t control them. Arco’s family, who we meet as they’re cooking a simple meal together, are connected to each other in a way that starkly contrasts with Iris’ family. For a movie that’s so (understandably) cynical about our current times, it’s optimistic about the future, though it sounds like things will have to get far worse before they ever get better.

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Arco hit U.S. theaters in limited release on Jan. 23, and expands to nationwide release on Jan. 30.