Film 2009 #195 - Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are (2009, dir. Spike Jonze)
Starring Katherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Dano, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker

Taking up only around a dozen pages, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are seemed more appropriate as an animated short, rather than a live action feature. Thanks to the creative genius of Spike Jonze, the story was able to be fleshed out further without losing the themes and tone of the picture book. Instead of opting for the current trend of CG animation, Jonze turned to an older and more conventional method by hiring the Henson Creature Shop to design and construct full body suits of the Wild Things. The result is a film that says as much to adults as it does children.

The story, familiar to most, is very simple: Young Max is stomping around the house in his monster suit, bites his mother and is punished. Instead of Max's bedroom transforming into the forest, Jonze sends Max into the real woods and to a scenario that causes us to ask whether he actually experienced this or not. Max ends up on an island, populated by giant monsters which Max quickly conquers as their king. In the world of the film, a conflict arises between two Wild Things: KW and Carol. This provides the crux of the drama in the film and parallels the typically volatile relationship Max experiences with his sister.

Jonze creates a tone that very few children's films possess; a tone of honesty. Max behaves like a real child, not a Disney-fied picture of perfection or precociousness. Max has his own sense of illogical, child-like logic and reacts with violent emotion. Author Sendak has commented, about the original text, that it was meant to speak to children about being angry and not play to the wants of parents. The voices of the Wild Things are also filtered through Max as well and represent both the different sides of his personality as well as the way he sees people in his life.

Many parents complained that the film was too dark but I see it as no darker than the original story. I think many parents fail to realize the honesty of Sendak's text, which in turn makes it a "dark" story in comparison to the false sunniness of many children's stories. I also think, unlike films such as Shrek and Madagascar and films of that kind, Where the Wild Things Are has true intellectual "nutritive value". Jonze has made a film that will provide something new and valuable to audiences as they grow older.