As a young child, I was a voracious reader. I had pretty much every "Berenstain Bears" book, I owned such classics as "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "Corduroy", and "Strega Nona", and I couldn't get enough of Dr. Seuss. But if there was a single book from that time of my life that I recall having a significant impact on me, it was Maurice Sendak's beloved 1963 "Where the Wild Things Are". Forty pages long, but with only ten lines of dialogue, Sendak's book was hailed as a groundbreaking landmark in the realm of children's literature, not only for its highly imaginative illustration, but also a subversively intimate look into the emotions of children.
So it was only inevitable that one day Hollywood would adapt the book into a film. After all, it was adapted into an animated short in the early '70s, and an opera version toured the world in the '80s. But considering the fact that the movie would be at least ninety minutes and the book having a VERY minimal plot, Tinseltown execs couldn't just hand the project off to anyone. "Wild Things" ended up going through a long and tumultuous production history, starting off as an animated feature at Disney, then as a live-action version at Universal Studios, until it finally found a home at Warner Bros. in 2001.
Finally, director duties ended up going to cinematic wunderkind and Oscar-nominee Spike Jonze. A legendary music video director, Jonze certainly had a diverse enough career to earn the directing honors, from helming the mind-bending art-house films "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation", to co-creating the juvenile MTV series "Jackass". Having started filming in 2006, Jonze certainly had a challenge ahead of him in crafting a tale that would sustain a feature-length film, all while remaining true to the spirit of the book.
Despite some clashes with WB executives regarding the tone and content of the movie (along with some subsequent reshoots), Jonze's film is nothing short of extraordinary. Rather than going for the safe choice of making it bland and completely kid-friendly, Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers have created a daring, emotional, and visually-enthralling movie that is meant not just for kids, but for adults who still look at their own childhood in a retrospective and introspective sense. It's one part imaginative and one part psychoanalytical. In short, it's a children's movie that Freud would love.
The film essentially stays true to the original story: a young, hyperactive boy named Max (played by a terrific Max Records) causes trouble in his house, and is punished by his mother (Catherine Keener) for his tantrums. Max, wearing his favorite wolf costume, runs away from home, venturing into the woods, and setting sail on a lake in a small boat. He eventually finds his way to a small island inhabited by enormous animal-like creatures known as the Wild Things. Facing being eaten, Max builds himself up as a mighty king of incredible powers who can bring happiness to the group. The Wild Things believe him, and crown him as their king.
Of course, since the book put the story to the wayside to pay attention to the amazing visuals, Jonze and Eggers needed to fill in the gaps. As such, they expanded Max's story, depicting him as the lonely son of a single parent, brimming with imagination but held down by the sad reality of growing up and losing the pure joy of being a child. And as Sendak's book subtly examines anger and imagination, Jonze goes one step further by making each Wild Thing a metaphorical personification of a separate facet of Max's psyche: the lead Wild Thing, Carol (voiced by a fabulous James Gandolfini) is a passive-aggressive with anger issues; his former mate KW (Lauren Ambrose) is a loner who tries to set out for a newer life; Ira (Forest Whitaker) is a subdued, eager-to-please pushover, and his mate Judith (Catherine O'Hara), who's a bossy critic; the Bull (Michael Berry), who always keeps to himself; Douglas (Chris Cooper), Carol's close friend and the group's peacemaker; and Alexander (Paul Dano), a small goat-like creature who thinks that no one pays attention to him.
To say that "Where the Wild Things Are" is not for the youngest of children is a huge understatement. While scary in some scenes (though not extremely oppressive), the main reason why this film is more for older ages is due to how it focuses on the mind of a child. Despite what some may think, a kid's psyche is just as complex and multilayered as an adult's, which is why the film is not only something an elementary-age kid can relate to, but also for any grown-up who hasn't taken the full effort to understand why their early years were the way they were.
As a result, Jonze has created a highly intimate, emotionally-charged, and wonderfully realized cinematic undertaking, an experience not like many films before it. It also helps that the movie is absolutely beautiful on an aesthetic level: the world of the Wild Things is a fabulously intricate wonder to behold, bolstered by Lance Acord's cinematography and K.K. Barrett's production design. The costume design of the Wild Things are also amazing in their own right. Rather than being entirely computer-generated, the production utilized "suitmation" (think people in monster suits in "Godzilla" films, but twenty times more realistic and believable), with the highly expressive faces added in later via CGI. All in all, expect at least several tech category nominations (and possible wins) come Oscar time.
I had rather high expectations for "Where the Wild Things Are" prior to its release, and after viewing it, the film not only exceeded my expectations, but it also made me do something that kid's movies rarely make me do: think. I thought about my own childhood, about how difficult and confusing the world seemed then, and how my imagination saved me from mentally self-destructing. Any movie that can make one reexamine their past so proficiently deserves any praise it gets. A tender, beautiful, engrossing, and visual masterpiece, "Where the Wild Things Are" is an experience for the Wild Thing in all of us.
Letter Grade: "A"
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