Director: Spike Jonze
Writer(s): Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers

Cast:
Max Records – Max
Catherine Keener – Connie
Forest Whitaker – Ira
James Gandolfini – Carol
Lauren Ambrose – KW
Catherine O’Hara – Judith
Michael Berry Jr. – The Bull
Chris Cooper – Douglas
Paul Dano – Alexander

Preamble:
The 1963 children’s book by Maurice Sendak, 48 pages and 10 sentences long, gets adapted to live action by Spike Jonze.

Plot Points:

There isn’t much in the way of plot, as the original picture book was largely unconcerned with it. The essence though, is that a child is upset, runs away, and imagines a better world for himself where his home life is “easier” and controlled by him.

The Meat:
The natural inclination when seeing a movie like this is to question the need for its existence. With such bare bones source material, isn’t the adaptation rife for failure? Is there so much visual invention in Spike’s work that he can cover up the lack of a human cast and linear storytelling? There’s plenty potential for a Transformers 2 type “why the hell was this movie made” response. The movie’s greatest achievement, however, might be in reminding adult viewers that ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ never existed to service a plot.

Max’s parents are probably divorced, at the very least his mother is dating. She’s not paying full attention to him, and the man she’s being friendly with downstairs (instead of playing with Max) certainly isn’t his father. Max has just learned that the sun will die one day. That’s the plot setup for the film, and it’s all we need. Escaping into a nearby forest area after losing it with his mother, still wearing his wolf costume, the imaginative protagonist does what many children do instinctively – he acts as his own therapist. Who better to illustrate the session than the director of ‘Adaptation’?

Max projects all of his emotions onto imaginary wild beings, unable to grasp larger concepts in more realistic terms. If the Sun is going to die and parents don’t stay together, a child’s frame of reference for things like permanence, love, and friendship is shattered. He has to redefine these things, prematurely forced into an emotional form of puberty as so many children in single-parent households are. It’s the aftermath of a car crash, and Max goes to regain his bearings in the forest. Here, he re-imagines sections of arguments he’s heard, combined with his own fears and wishes for both the adults in his life and himself. Wishing himself to be king and trying his best to bring happiness, Max takes ownership of a situation where he was powerless. He forces all the giants around him to just… “be still”. He then sets out to accomplish his stated mission, making everyone happy again.

The problem of course, is the way these giants make things more complicated than play time and sleep time(the illustration of selfish affection is especially well done). Carefully considering the nature of consequences and complex emotions, he realizes in time his own smallness. As one of the characters says about the Sun “why worry about that little thing when I’m so big?” It’s sad to see Max finally gain perspective, and appreciate all those “you’ll understand when you’re older” conversations; but it’s also fun watching him oversee a group of Giant creatures building a life-sized version of a child’s fort along the shore. ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ alternates heavily between the two emotions, between real grave situations and fantasy, and our protagonist acts and talks like children with overactive imaginations generally do. There’s never a “creepy child actor who speaks too well for his age” moment despite Max Records being nearly the only human actor for most of the film. For that, there aren’t many better examples of character studies of children in memory. Pan’s Labyrinth has a sister.

*Special nod for the voice work, which is as good as any animation.

Movie – 10/10