Where the Wild Things Are: 2009

Carol and Max quietly contemplating in the sunset.

There’s something visceral about Spike Jonze’s adaptation of “Where the Wild Things Are.” Expanding the famous children’s book into a full-length film, Jonze creates a darker tale that explores the deeper, sadder parts of childhood that so many of us forget or refuse to remember.

The story begins with Max (Max Records), a lonely boy who feels rejected by his sister and neglected by his divorced and overworked mother, Connie (Catherine Keener). He builds a igloo which is smashed his sister’s friends; he retaliates by smushing and smashing up her room. He creates a fort in his room to play with his mother but is ignored while she is preoccupied with her boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo); he responds by jumping up on the kitchen counter, biting Connie and running away, away until he finds a little boat and sails off into the night to an island where the Wild Things reside.

The Wild Things are fearsome creatures, towering with might and more than willing to devour little Max. He convinces them that he is, in fact, a Great King with incredible powers capable of bringing utter destruction or peace and prosperity. The Wild Things – which consist of the charismatic but hot-tempered Carol (James Gandolfini), the calm and morose KW (Lauren Ambrose), the soft-spoken Ira (Forest Whitaker), the aggressive Judith (Catherine O’Hara), the peacekeeper Douglas (Chris Cooper), the frequently ignored Alexander (Paul Dano), and the introverted Bull (Michael Berry Jr.) – are astounded by his presumed prowess, and accept him into their clan as King.

The movie unfolds with Max bidding the Wild Things into his plans of grandeur, adventures of greatness, games of excitement and company of reassurance. They venture to build a great fort, engage in dirt ball warfare, and wander across the terrain waiting on for impulsive whims to take hold and cascade into full effect.

So what is this movie about? How does one turn a 48 page children’s book into a full-length, 101 minute and $100,000,000 budget film? Accordingly, Spike Jonze’s reinterpretation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved book is far less direct and much more pensive. This is a movie that doesn’t fear to dive into an angry boy’s psychology, to engage in emotions so utterly instinctual, raw and sad that they echo from the deepest subconscious of adolescence.

Max is angry. His teenager sister is preoccupied in her own world and his mother is preoccupied with her job and romantic life. Understandably he feels unwanted, unnoticed, unneeded – a existence without meaning, at least in his mind. This leads to frustration: try harder he must, to rouse some reciprocation, to know that he simply isn’t a mistake, that he is loved. When the response isn’t positive, he feels betrayed and lashes out. Why oh why must he continuously try to no avail?

So he runs away. To find justification, solace, afresh from the chains of a family seemingly unsympathetic to his frustration and hurt. He sails away until he encounters an island and its inhabitants, the Wild Things. The Wild Things – despite their intimidating appearance – are a welcomed presence to Max, who finds their unusual, majestical aura incredibly appealing. He joins them willingly to escape and dispel of his previous life. Whether the Wild Things are of his construction is beyond the point: this is his domain, his cavern away from everything too familiar and too disappointing.

He roams the island with the Wild Things. Free of household control and smothering dissatisfaction, he is unhampered from his inhibitions and impulses. Soon, however, he realizes that this newfound autonomy is anything but blissfully happy, that the Wild Things – for all their power and myth – are just as vulnerable as he is, with perhaps even more dangerous repercussions. Carol, for all his charm and enthusiasm, is dangerously volatile, and on more than one occasion hints and threatens Max and several other creatures when he feels wronged. The morose KW, fed up with general lack of structure and emotional control, finds comfort in bouts of isolation. Judith, for all her spunk and snark, easily succumbs to shock and hurt when unexpectedly confronted.

As we become more and more acquainted with each creature, it becomes clear that Max is dealing with a new set of problems that are beyond his full understanding and control: regardless of his best wishes, each Wild Thing reacts differently to his actions. Eventually it escalates into something that is too much for him to handle, and he realizes that perhaps these creatures are reflections of his own inner turmoils. Hideaway from family he can, but not from his own emotional discontent, and without this grounding Max knows that he cannot pursue a new life without the same problems he has run away from. He eventually leaves the Wild Things and returns to his home, where he reconciles with his mother and with himself.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is not a movie for instant understanding and gratification. It is emotional, immaterial, deeply contemplative and above all, a harrowingly haunting film. Great self-reflection is necessary to fully appreciate the vision and depth Spike Jonze paints, and to simply dismiss it as simple bout of childish temper and imagination is unfairly lackluster and fallow. Beyond every outer shell are layers upon layers of emotional complexities, complexities that “Where the Wild Things” fully immerses in without fear of reviving memories of childhood that many have simply shut out from our minds.

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