DVDFile

I'll say this about Spike Jonze's big-gamble film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are: Viewers are unlikely to have mixed feelings about it. Made with broad, sweeping strokes and bold, atypical narrative, Where the Wild Things Are was THE love-it-or-hate-it flick of 2009, a movie that was as difficult to pin down as it was unable to find widespread multiplex acclaim.

Part of the issue at hand is the sheer act of adaptation (Adaptation?) that Jonze and screenwriting collaborator Dave Eggers were faced with upon with Wild Things. Sure, big-budget fiascos like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat were borne of super-short children's books, but how does one attempt to make an aesthetically appropriate movie out of Maurice Sendak's iconic tome that unveils itself in less than forty pages? Well, at the very least it can be said that Sendak is happy with Jonze's take on his tale (there's a quite revealing bonus feature here where the two artists interact with one another), so it looks as though both filmmakers and author have little qualm calling Where the Wild Things Are a faithful translation.

The story is just like you remembered: A kid (Max Records) is fed up with his sister (Pepita Emmerichs) and his somewhat-distant mom (Catherine Keener), so he decides to run away, ending up in a boat that takes him to the mystical land of the Wild Things. There Max meets up with the giant, goofy beasts (with voice talents of James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker, among others) and has the sort of adventure that makes him recognize the merits of family and home.

This writer's main (and as it turns out, crippling) issue with Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are is that it is a movie filled with assholes. Max is a whiny little jerk, his mom is more interested in her freshly-divorced return to the dating world than she is with her son's inner turmoil - and Hell, even the Wild Things are meanies, punctuating their lovable exteriors with terrifically passive/aggressive behavior and spontaneous bursts of terrifying anger and violence. I guess what I mean to say is that I found no one to root for in Where the Wild Things Are. In Sendak's book, one's imagination can fill in the blanks between its sparse language and amazing drawings, and it turns out that Jonze has done the same thing with his film, only those filled-in spaces are chock full of atonal humph and crankiness that seem completely out of step with the book's feel.

That being said, however, I find myself drawn to films like Where the Wild Things Are in a nearly masochistic way. I saw the film in a Reno multiplex last fall, where it was met with at least ten walkouts in the first half hour, and angry Sendak fans after the credits started to roll - long story short: I knew I was fascinated. Some critics have heaped praise on the film, calling it the perfect postmodern marriage of mythological storytelling and broken-home American reality, but I respectfully disagree. Where the Wild Things Are may indeed be a unique, singular vision, but I was dismayed, disappointed and (frankly) pissed off at its every turn.

Comments (1)

Phil Piercey March 16, 2010

Children Need This Movie

I have read this book to my children so much that I had to buy multiple copies over the years. So, when it came out naturally I took my girls (9 and 10) to see the movie. Here is the most important part that any review can not capture about the film. The world from their imaginations was right in front of them and they smiled and did not speak the enitre time, they sat forward in their seats often so enveloped in the world of their dreams that they simply couldn't have pictured it any better. Immediately after the end of the movie I asked them "was it what you expected?" they explained that it was exactly what they thought Carol, Alex, Judith, Ira and others would be like. Second point, they immediately asked if we could see it again. Third point, we will buy the DVD and I am sure it will be watched until it skips. Fourth point, I will buy it again.

For parents and the kidos, I say enjoy.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +1

Leave a comment

Title
Comment	smaller | bigger
Name
Email
	Add Comment