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MOVIE REVIEW – Where the Wild Things Are

Posted October 23rd 2009 by Jacob Barnes.

Taking a ten-sentence children's book and transforming it into a 111-page screenplay is no easy task. The original book, Where the Wild Things Are, had a simple plot and only one named character, so how does one go about turning this into a feature film? Some might turn it into a Pixar wannabe movie with bad CGI while others might substitute the lack of plot for action and explosions. Spike Jonze and crew manage to take the film down a less conventional path, all while staying true to the book.

Where the Wild Things Are centers around Max (Max Records), an attention-seeking boy who can be a little wild at times. He gets so wild in fact that one night he throws a tantrum, running away from home to find a sailboat that takes him to an island inhabited by "wild things". What's different from the book is that these wild things have names, and big-name voice actors to go with them. Some people might find it awkward to hear Catherine O'Hara, for example, voicing a big monster but I think it adds to their personalities and fits each character quite nicely.

What most people will notice about these creatures is how emotional they are, some almost to the point of looking suicidal. This is where Spike Jonze adds some of his own narrative if you want to call it that. I was led to believe there would be some antagonist or traitor in the group, most likely being the mysterious bull (Michael Berry Jr.). Instead, Max acts as the therapist to these creatures and has to repair some relationships with his new friends and family back home along the way.

There are scenes where the wild things behave a little more wildly, for lack of a better term, and I think younger kids will enjoy these moments more than the emotional ones. Max and the gang have a few of these instances where they jump on each other, have dirtball fights and build imaginative, elaborate structures only to tear them down later. These scenes take me back to when I was a kid growing up in Pennsylvania where my backyard was a veritable forest. It was a more simple time then (way back in the '90s) and us kids knew how to have fun with our imagination. I built little forts, went exploring in the woods and had my own treehouse. Children relate to that and if nothing else adults should take those memories away from the movie also.

The flow in the narrative and movie in general has some awkward moments. Partially it comes from Jonze's own directing style and his attempt to fill in the story's gaps. He introduces two owls at one point, who I don't remember being in the book, that help Max give advice to his quarreling friends. The owls tell Max to ask them about his troubles, after which they are introduced to the rest of the wild things group to settle their differences. I'm not sure why they chose owls for that scene or if it was supposed to be funny, or if the owls were supposed to be representations of outsiders to his family in Max's mind. Even so, I doubt kids will understand that. The funniest part of the movie to me was when Carol, Max's friend, rips off another wild thing's arm in a fit anger. There aren't many side-splitting laughs unless you enjoy weird humor like that.

The soundtrack livens up the mood in some of the slower segments and really matches the mood of the film. Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs fame did most of the soundtrack with help from members of groups like The Dead Weather and Deerhunter. It's good light indie rock that gets a little moody but never too dark, like music you would hear in a Target commercial.

Maurice Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, says that this version takes nothing from his book but it enhances and enriches the original. I would agree that Spike Jonze gives the story a life of its own, even if it still lacks some substance. Being a good adaptation from the film, I still can't recommend this to everyone. This is a film that may leave both children and adults wondering what they got out of it. To me it's a pretty solid recreation of a classic.

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Posted in: Entertainment, Reviews

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