Where the Wild Things Are – Movie Review

I don’t remember the book Where The Wild Things Are from my childhood, but I worked for 11 years as a nanny and came to know it quite well. At first, it made no sense to me. I would read it aloud to children but wouldn’t get any meaning from it. Then I heard a line of the book spoken by Leo Starwind in the middle of a song of his. Starwind spoke the line in a very particular, distinct, dramatic voice. I went home and read the story aloud in this voice, and instantly my love, understanding, and connection to the tale clicked into place.

That may be a strange story of coming to love a children’s book, but it is a strange book indeed, and the movie blows it up into the reality-sized strangeness of the emotional landscape that is real life. The movie Where The Wild Things Are takes the barest hints into the mind of Max offered up in the book and fiercely and fearlessly expands on those clues into a dark and dirty, uncomfortably formidable movie.

Here’s a rundown of the Maurice Sendak book Where The Wild Things Are: Little boy Max is sad and angry and does things that lead his mother to send him to bed with no supper. He is delighted to experience his room turning into a forest and ocean, taking him to the land of the wild things who are wild and scary, but Max wins them over by being wilder and scarier still. After partying with the wild things, Max sends them to bed with no supper, leaving him lonely and pining for his mother. He heads back across the ocean and back into his room where his still warm supper is waiting for him. That’s the whole story – it’s just 9 sentences long – although more poetic than my telling, of course, and greatly aided by the illustrations, also by Maurice Sendak.

The Spike Jonze movie is not for young children. The pacing is too slow, the music too adult-contemporary, and the relationships between the characters too confrontational yet nuanced for young children to grasp or enjoy the production. Instead, Where The Wild Things Are is an uneasy tale about relationship expectations, with angry little Max’s sharp dissatisfaction with his life and his family pushing him into a role where he can be the one succeeding or failing in fulfilling the desires of others.

There are some lighthearted and childlike aspects to the movie. The visual representation of the wild things definitely stands out. Jim Henson Co.’s Creature Shop created the wild things’ huge costumes, bringing Sendak’s characters uncannily to life. Their CGI faces and bouncy, floaty, huge actions are a joy to watch. I kept thinking that Max was about to be squished to death at any minute, but the wild things are the perfect amount of rough-and-tumble, brought to life to the gasps and squeals of the audience. The actors giving voices to the wild things all did a fabulous job as well – Catherine O’Hara, Lauren Ambrose, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, and James Gandolfini.

Aside from beautiful landscapes and the occasional tender moment, though, this movie was not what I would call enjoyable. It is presented in a very “real life” kind of way. The actor playing Max – Max Records – shows us the tattered feelings of a lonely kid without once reminding you of a cute child actor. There are many tense scenes, but almost nothing “resolves”. You are led to view situations from a different perspective (along with Max), but you are never led neatly to a conclusion. It’s messy. It’s uncomfortable. It’s honest and stark and insightful.

In other words, the movie Where The Wild Things Are truly is based on the book with the same name. Certainly, many people have read the book  over the years and missed the subtlety of the story in favor of thinking it’s a book about overgrown stuffed animals (as I did upon my first several readings of it.) In The Art of Maurice Sendak (by Selma G. Lanes), Sendak says that Where The Wild Things Are centers on children’s survival, change, and fury and how they master their feelings. A topic about children, perhaps, but not a childish topic, by any means.

On screen, Where The Wild Things Are perfectly captures both the magic and the darkness of Sendak’s book and offers up a journey that, while not quite fun, is certainly valuable to take.

Oh, and once you fall in love with this story, there are plenty of things to buy to remind you of the tale, including the original story in hardcover, the movie storybook, the making-of book, a 2010 wall calendar, wild things T-shirts, the movie soundtrack, and of course, stuffed toys. Check them out!