A movie based on Maurice Sendak’s perennial childhood favorite Where The Wild Things Are seemed like a fulfilling no-brainer children’s movie our young son would love. I had no expectations for my own adult sensibilities to be engaged, and yet a whole day later I can’t stop thinking about the mindful way Spike Jonze, as director and author of the screenplay, dealt with inserting meaningful plot into a 40-page picture book. Our son did enjoy the movie, but I think it went beyond entertainment to establish a new level of film making when dealing with complicated familial stories.
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Max is as we’ve always known him: a slightly out-of-control young boy who would rather live imaginatively than listen to his mother. The lonely Max, played by native Portlander Max Records, has a very real hole in his family where the father used to be while his sister is a typically inattentive teenager and his mother struggles to work and parent two strong children. Though Max runs away to live with the Wild Things, his personal history follows him to be relived and re-examined on their island. Children will enjoy the wild “rumpusing” – basketball-sized holes in trees, sleeping in a “real pile”, howling at the moon – though many adults won’t help but feel the resonant themes of betrayal and abandonment as Max finds his way home again.
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The cast also includes Catherine Keener as Max’s mother, and though her time spent on-screen is short, she manages to imbue each moment with an almost painfully real quality that is consistent with her previous acting roles. In addition, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, and Forest Whitaker are among the voices of the monsters, who in a twist of filmmaking necessity have gained what feel like strangely comfortable names. The relatively new Lauren Ambrose plays the monster “KW” – think duck feet and long brown hair – with a soft intensity that emphasizes her sad dissent from the group as the sole advocate for decreased violence.
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Both visually and musically, the film is brilliant. Each monster comes alive directly from Sendak’s originals and are made whole by the superb vision of the Jim Henson Company and seamless CGI. However, the titular “wild things” never veer the film into the realm of the fantastical. Instead they are treated in a very normal manner. The question of whether Max is actually on an island inhabited by larger than life monsters or perhaps just dreaming the whole thing is not the driving force of the movie nor is it even important here. What is of central interest are the things that Max experiences. He gets to see what life is like in duality, as the bully and bullied, the parent and the child. What Max has learned, if anything, by being king of the Wild Things is left up to the viewer to speculate and decide.
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That is perhaps the greatest strength of Where The Wild Things Are and also what propels it into the realm of greatness. There is no preaching here, no Hollywood happy ending where the family group-hugs their way through lessons learned and a better understanding. For all we know Max may go right back to misbehaving after a good night’s sleep. Again, that isn’t the point. This is a children’s movie for all ages that never treats its audience in an immature or childish way. Spike Jonze and company have created something special here and it will captivate you in the singular way the Maurice Sendak’s book does. You won’t soon forget it, nor will you want to.
[Editor’s note: This review also contains input and text from Joseph Dilworth Jr.]
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