Where the Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze has been known for some memorable pieces in his career (the best Weezer and Tenacious D videos, Jackass, Being John Malkovich and a Co-director on a film I have always wanted to review but haven't felt like I could give a worthy description of: The Fall). His 2009 film, based on my favorite children's book of all time "Where the Wild Things Are" aims to please a range of viewers. On the one hand you have a children's classic, with lovable characters of make-believe fabricated in the main character's mind (Max). On the other hand, each character, as the adult viewer catches onto throughout the film, represents a different manifestation of Max's emotions that he is feeling on the surface. My mom used to read the book to me at bedtime and I recall such vivid images of Max's bedroom page by page slowly turning into a new world, the far-off land of the wild things, and those creatures with their yellowy eyes. It was oddly scary and comforting at the same time to hear that story each night. That's probably why I was curious to see what director Spike Jonze would do with the big screen adaptation.

A little background on the film, it was actually supposed to come out a year ago, but in a test screening to a children audience, there were children leaving the theater in tears after being scared of the monsters. The film still does contain dark themes (hints of cannibalism, and witchcraft for example) however the faces of each beast were reanimated with CGI, as per studio's request to appeal to a wider audience inclusive of children. The film also was directed using natural lighting, which is a remarkable achievement that seems to be common to Jonze's style. In fact many parts of the film reminded me of his Weezer video "Island in the Sun."

Max is a burdened child, not feeling anything extraordinary from most kids, but they are exceptional emotions to him with no one that seems to relate to what he is feeling around him. The film does an exceptional job of portraying the assumptions adolescents make from problems that everyone seems to grow out of, but shouldn't be seen as juvenile just because it is a child that experiences them. Often grownups (I think the film argues) downplay the emotions of a child just because they are just that, childish. However, the film strives to give a deeper meaning to the common experiences of what children go through. As one critic put it, "It's less ABOUT a kid and more about BEING a kid." For example, Max's school teacher describes what the end of the world would look like, starting with the death of the sun and the slow widdling away of life throughout the universe. Max, as a boy, cannot grasp any type of long-term vision around the fact and starts to become scared, assuming that the death of the sun will happen inevitably and soon. Max tries to find solace and companionship in his mother and sister, who cannot seem to relate or take the time to calm down his rash, immediate assertions. It is at this point that he runs away from it all and creates a world in his mind that he can call his own and build. Within this world he creates "wild things" that each represent a piece of his torn emotions. These emotions are vivid and obvious parallels that become fun to pick out and identify over the course of the film.

Now, Jonze decided to stray away from the book at this point. Of course you have to give him a little slack as some critics refuse to, I mean, the book is about 30 pages long with 2-4 lines per page, you have to stray a little bit. For example, the Max in the book is a garrulous young boy of about six years old. He is sent to his room without his supper. The Max of the movie is deeply disturbed and much older and he ends up running away from home. The problem here is not that Jonze decided to stray from the book, its that this straying created serious convolution of character and plot.

The characters become dealt with one at a time and introduced in the same manner. The main monster, Carol becomes the main character that Max speaks with. First of all, assigning very common, human names to the beasts gives it away that Max is tagging very human qualities to the manifestations of his imagination. Carol is the main monster that Max deals with, because he is the representation of the central emotion that Max is dealing with in real life. There could be nothing clearer to give this away then when Max first meets Carol he is wrecking and destroying pieces of his friend's houses, just as Max did in frustration with his sister's room earlier in the day. Carol is dealing with his best friend neglecting him for other friends, friends that Carol refuses to let into his life. This friend is KW who represents Max's sister in real life or the emotion of desired companionship. Carol finds himself neglected and lonely, above all he is constantly worried and insecure. These are the emotions that are at the forefront of Max's life as he experiences a lack of friendship and neglecting from his mother and sister. Max also confronts other emotions throughout his make believe journey, for example the beast named Douglas is always ignored, even bullied. Max sits down with Douglas and tells him that no one ever listens to him. After comforting Douglas into thinking that even though no one seems to notice it doesn't mean that no one cares. Every single confrontation and words of comfort that Max expresses to his beast friends are the conflicts or the words he needed to confront and hear in real life. The words he expresses to them in comfort are ironically the very words he needed to hear for himself. As the tag line of the movie says "there is one in all of us" (a wild thing), this refers to the fact that we all have an emotional burden inside each of us screaming to be let out just as each wild thing, and Max learn to howl and scream their way into exposure. He even comes to piece with the one beast that has only the one line in the entire film, but is silent the entire time. The bull tells Max he is going to miss him, finally speaking this is Max's shy side that has finally decided to come out and expose his emotions. It is after confronting each of these emotions (or beasts) that he decided it is time to go home. This part of the film is surprisingly emotional and satisfying as the film is admittedly and exhausting 2 hours long. There are definitely times when watching that you are waiting for Jonze to wrap it up.

In regards to interpreting the meaning of the Things or Beasts, one critic wrote:

"The Things are potent symbols that refuse to yield to a single interpretation. Carol blends Max’s angry, destructive impulses and anxieties with Max’s mother’s concern and, dimly, the reassuring voice of the father who isn’t there. It’s not hard to see where Carol and KW’s quarrels come from, and KW’s absences are the flip side of Carol’s surrogate fatherhood, but Max’s sister is also in KW, off cavorting with her new friends and leaving Carol, and thus Max, in the lurch.
Among the most revelatory moments are an outburst from Judith (the rhino-nosed one, voiced by Catherine O’Hara), the harshest and most cynical of the Wild Things, following a taunting match with Max. "You’re not supposed to yell back at me!” she screams. “You have to just listen and love me anyway, because that’s your job!” It is his own voice, uttering his own unspoken plea to his mother. In another scene, Max flings at Carol the very words his mother yelled at him: “You’re out of control!”
The movie is full of wonderful visions, from the burying of Max beneath a heap of Things (perhaps the most sadness-shielding moment in the film) to Carol’s tabletop model-building and the large-scale fortress the Things set about building, both of which have a nest-like textured look that evokes Sendak’s crosshatching pen-and-ink work. Max Records is ideal as Max, one of the most unaffected child actor performances since E.T.
Like E.T., which explicitly referenced Peter Pan, Where the Wild Things Are is indebted to J. M. Barrie’s classic tale. The realm of the Wild Things is wondrous but unsettling and sad, and at one point Max tells KW, “I wish you all had a mother,” just as Neverland is a heartless place because there are no mothers there.
Watching the film, at times I wished for something closer to Sendak, something simpler and less talky, with more attention to the book's most striking images: not just the missing bedroom scene, but the sea-monster Thing that greets Max before he makes land; the Things swinging through the treetops like monkey bars during the Wild Rumpus; the sweater-striped Thing (Carol) bowing in courtly fashion to the newly crowned Max. Yet put the book aside and watch the film as a Thing unto itself, as a better cousin of Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, or a Muppet-ier cousin of E.T., and I think it is something rather wonderful.
In a word, the great difference between Sendak’s book and Jonze’s film is that the book is about anger, while the film is as much about sadness. Here is a film broken-hearted over the messiness of the world. It is sad, and beautiful, and true."


In the end, Max realizes and comes the the conclusion that each monster (or emotion) can't survive without their mother (as he fulfilled the motherly role himself). Or in other words, every piece of our childhood needs to be nurtured, not tortured or run away from as Max did.

CONSENSUS:

Rotten Tomatoes give this move a 70% rating

Zoom In Analysis will AGREE with this rating. Though the film provides a deeper insight into emotions that we strive to keep but our lack of innocence has detached ourselves from, it makes no effort to entertain the child inside of us. In other words, I think many of us went to the film expecting to feel like a child again, but instead we were put through a lesson on how to relate to them. Even though the studio made great effort to make it appeal more to kids, it is not wiping out the scary elements that they needed to focus on as it is the length of the film. 2 hours seemed a little too long for the kids in the theater with me, and even I was growing impatient. Through it still provided moments of nostalgia and provided plenty of elements of humor and aesthetics, the film cannot possibly be put in a category of excellence.