Release Date: 10/16/09
Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and based on the famous children’s book, is a dark fantasy-adventure film. It is an interesting and artsy film, one that might disturb little kids but affect adults in a much more positive way. This film has a very unique tone to it and I enjoyed it for the most part. It is an overall sad story but while still leaving the viewer with a warm feeling in the end. It touches many subjects such as the loneliness and imagination of youth and the power of friendship and family. Some are calling it brilliant and others seem to think it is an underwhelming adaptation, I’m somewhere in between, because I enjoyed the film a great deal but it wasn’t quite what it could have been.
Max, played by the young actor Max Records, is a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home with his Mother, played by Catherine Keener, and escapes by running away. Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions. The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Lauren Ambrose and Chris Cooper voice the creatures. When Max is crowned the creatures’ king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought.
The style of director Spike Jonze is definitely a distinctive one. He stamps his strange and out of the ordinary signature all over this film. Where the Wild Things Are has a lot of positive qualities. The voice acting was perfectly cast, and the creatures couldn’t have looked any better. Every scene with these huge soft-spoken characters was awesome to watch. The only voices that definitely stand out are Gandolfini and Whitaker all the others blend in with their characters very well. Gandolfini and Whitaker are two of the best creatures in the film though, as by the end of the movie you feel for these creatures. They are only looking for happiness, and all these emotions the creatures display are in direct result of the lead character Max and what he truly wants with his life.
The film is visually stunning to look at, the CGI, art direction, and cinematography are all well crafted. The music is different with the main theme being preformed by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s. It might not work for everyone but I believe it fits the style of the movie very well. The only thing I was disappointed in is the great song from the trailer is not in the movie. I thought that song would have been absolutely perfect for the film, maybe the end credits.
The story starts off decent but I don’t think they developed Max enough with his Mother in the beginning of the film. They jump right into Max running away to this strange land, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because the creatures are what make the movie, but the effect it has on the viewer at the end could have been greater if we felt more for the relationship between Mother and Son. The film also felt a tad short, at an hour and 30 minutes that is usually a decent length for a fantasy adventure film, but it just felt like a few scenes were missing. They bunched a lot of unnecessary scenes into the film, like a dirt fight or just the main characters knocking down trees, and I felt like more story was needed to accomplish a perfect film.
Overall, Spike Jonze took his best shot at creating Where the Wild Things Are, which doesn’t seem like the easiest task. He created a visually stunning film with a lot of positives, just not enough positives to muster up a MADE movie.
Go see Where the Wild Things Are, because it might affect you in a totally different way.
IMDB: N/A
Rotten Tomatoes: 64%
Moviewiseguys: 7.5/10
March 15, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Ok So I agree with you 95% of the way. I just saw this last night and I will say that it was a little wacky and all over the place. I was trying to carefully connect all the pieces and understand the significance of the “wild things”. The part where I disagree is when you said he bunched in scenes like smashing trees and the dirt fight. That was significant. In the first scene on the island, Carol (who was the destructive “wild thing” that was closely related to max and his destructive behavior) was smashing the tree houses which separated each of them from one another. This was because he wanted to sleep in huddles or piles like they “used to”. This was just like Max would destroy the house and break things when he felt that him and his family were being separated. This was Carol’s biggest problem and the one that Max could most relate to, the separation of him and his family.
Also I think the dirt fight was related to the snow fight. The goat could of possibly signified Max’s weak self the way he ran away hurt and crying.
I don’t know. What do ya think about this.
March 15, 2010 at 8:31 pm
That’s interesting…I can see how the smashing of the trees would be significant and could relate to Max and his destructive behavior…I got most of what Jonze was saying with this film but there were just some scenes that didn’t work when being adapted from a kids book to a film like this…I haven’t seen this a 2nd time yet, but would really like to give it another chance because I feel like it could continue to get better with multiple viewings.