Movie Review, Jackie K. Cooper
Let me say up front I have never read Maurice Sendak's children's book Where the Wild Things Are, so I didn't come to view the film version of this story with any kind of awe or reverence. I watched the movie cold and I left it cold to the idea of a world where wild things lived and filled the void in a young boy's life.
Spike Jonze has adapted Sendak's few sentences of storyline into a full length movie about a young boy named Max who feels isolated and alone in his home. His sister ignores him and his mother is busy with her work and her new boyfriend. The boy becomes rebellious and runs away. He finds a boat and sets out on the open seas. There he floats to a world where wild things live.
These large creatures accept the young boy and decide to make him king. The boy loves the attention and tries to rule his new kingdom. It is a place of clod fights, fort building, and piled on sleeping accommodations. It is the world for which he has been searching.
All of this sounds like a fun film for the kids and an emotional one for adults, but it isn't. The film is much too scary for younger children and much too boring for older ones. If there is an audience of any type for this film it is probably older teens and young adults. They will possibly read into the bare bones plot all kinds of symbolism and meaning.
The acting is okay. Max Records plays Max who is the center of the film. He has some natural abilities that entertain somewhat. Catherine Keener has the world weary look necessary for the mother. James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Chris Cooper and others provide voices for the wild things and manage to mark them with distinct personalities.
The basic problem of the film is there is no core emotional element to surround the story. The audience never really relates to Max and his problems and certainly not to his attachment to the wild things. Plus the story is muddled. Does Max actually run away to sea or is all this only in his mind? How long is he gone? And most importantly what has he learned?
The film is rated PG for mild violence.
The special effects in the film are great. The wild things move and act believably. The look of the film is not so good. It is drab and sterile. All the warmth of the sun seems to have been drained from the landscape and from the characters. Aside from a few funny lines, the dialogue is mostly one of complaints which go along with Max's feelings.
Sometimes people get from movies what they bring with them. There are those who will come to this film remembering a child's book from their youth and they will treat the film with reverence. Others who do not have this past history with the story will just be bored and disenchanted. It basically is a love it or hate it film.
I can appreciate Jonze's direction and the care he gave to the film to get the images he wanted, but I still can not fall under the spell of the book that he viewed.
I scored "Where the Wild Things Are" a crazy 4 out of 10.
Jackie K. Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com
Molly Magid Hoagland: Wild Thing
Where the Wild Things Are is a quirky and heartfelt film and has made wolf-suited Max a hero for hipster grownups and über-cool kids, who see him as one of their own. But Max's truest soul mates are little kids.
I am 32 and went to see it in IMAX w/ my mother. I leaned over to her at one point and told her the magic I felt is the same as the magic I still feel watching "Mary Poppins".
I like this quote from EW: "They envisioned an anecodotal story line . . designed to illustrate the way a child can yearn for community and security AND rebellion and recklessness."
But he discussed it in detail with me afterwards and summed it up by saying " Max's life just was kind of awful. And the Wild Things are just the way Max feels about everything. But even though he still wants to go home, it doesn't mean it is just going to be all better."
I thought this movie was beautiful to look at, darkly funny and interesting. Max's world with the Wild Things was exactly the kind of dangerous, no way to enforce the rules kind of place kids make up when there are no grown-ups around to make them be nice.
The Wild Things are both what is inside of Max and the bigger kids who casually destroy his snow fort at the beginning. It's a harsh message for kids to take in- but no worse than the reality for millions of kids everyday in real life. My son really liked it and I felt like it gave us a lot to talk about- it just wasn't happy.
I find it hard to believe that a child would imagine a place where, from the beginning, he had the threat of being eaten over his head. If it is a fantasy, then why have an omnipresent fear of dying in it?
The book did not include this. It was a fantasy where he comes in, makes friends, and gains the respect and friendship of the wild things while sorting out his issues that exist in the real world. I don't see how making him fear for his life was in any way liberating and it made me not associate with the movie.
I agree that the plot needed to be fleshed out, but I found that plot underpinning to be unnessesarily harsh.
The music and cinematography were superb, but I kept wondering where this was going and when it would be over.
1. "The basic problem of the film is there is no core emotional element to surround the story."
A: MAX IS LONELY AND FEELS LIKE HIS FAMILY IS FALLING APART. DAD IS GONE, SIS HAS OLDER FRIENDS, MOM HAS A BOYFRIEND. HE'S FACED WITH THE IMPOTENCE OF A BOY WHO DOESN'T YET KNOW HOW TO BE A MAN. THAT'S A STRONG, CORE EMOTIONAL ELEMENT.
2. "The audience never really relates to Max and his problems and certainly not to his attachment to the wild things."
SERIOUSLY? WHEN YOU'RE THAT AGE, ALL YOU HAVE IS YOUR IMAGINATION TO TURN TO FOR COMFORT. DIDN'T YOU HAVE WILD THINGS WHEN YOU WERE A KID?
3. Plus the story is muddled. Does Max actually run away to sea or is all this only in his mind?
COME ON. IT WAS A FANTASY WORLD BUILT OUT OF THE EVERYDAY THINGS FROM HIS LIFE (THE BALL OF TWINE ON HIS BED-SIDE TABLE, THE "OWNER OF THE WORLD" GLOBE, HIS IGLOO FORT, HIS TOY SAILBOAT...).
4. How long is he gone?
WHO CARES?
5. And most importantly what has he learned?
HE LEARNED WHY HE ACTS OUT THE WAY HE DOES (EACH MONSTER REPRESENTS A PART OF HIS PERSONALITY -- OR SOMEONE ELSE IN HIS LIFE). HE ALSO LEARNS THAT HE MAY NOT HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THINGS SO HE SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE HIM RATHER THAN LASH OUT... LIKE A WILD THING.
Regardless, though, I completely disagree that someone uninitiated with the piece would find it a "long, non emotional visit." Sure, I read the book as a child, but it never really resonated with me. I didn't get it. But i LOVED the film. It reminded me that being nine years old is not the rosey-colored life that I fondly remember and yearn to return to (it sucks being a kid, but most of us choose not to remember that little fact). It also challenged me to delve no deeper than the emotional depth a nine year old boy would impose into his own fantasy world. It was at once an incredibly complex movie, yet beautifully simple.
But you're right...the "spell out everything for me cuz I won't 'get it' otherwise" popcorn munching, Transformers-loving movie-going crowd probably will hate it. But is that necessarily a bad thing?
I've heard several reivews of the movie, and they all agree, this is a "love it or hate it" kind of film. If you can lose yourself in the fact that this is a fantasy based on a boy's dream, and keep it in that context, then you'll love the movie, but if you try to apply too much reality, too much substance in the emotional impact of the character's interactions, then you will be disappointed
How much emotion do you really feel from a dream? Yes you feel a lot of emotion but it is filtered through a lens of distortion
Where the WIld THings Are has been called an Art Film, and it is in that context that people should view it. It is a dream, a fantasy, a spectacle, where the details are sketchy, allowing for one's imagination (if you have one) to fill in the gaps with your own personal experiences
Literalists need not go see this movie (in my humble opinion)