46 years after it was first published, Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, was released as a film this past summer, to mixed reviews.
“Where the Wild Things Are” follows the plot of the book: Max is a 9 year old boy who’s a little out-of-control. He’s going through some rough times in his life, including not getting along with his older sister and not getting enough attention from his divorced mother.
After a fight with his mom, Max runs away from home and ends-up on an island where he meets the “Wild Things” – very large monster-like creatures who are in need of a leader. Max becomes their king, and during his few days on the island Max has to deal with a lot of the problems that he’s dealing with back home.
The best way I can describe “Where the Wild Things Are” is “interesting”. If you think this is just another family film where a kid runs away from home and meets-up with animated monsters and has fun adventures, you are wrong. Instead, director Spike Jonze has made a very serious film that, frankly, most kids won’t understand. Sure, they’ll like seeing the big creatures, but the tone is clearly adult, which is what Jonze wanted.
The acting is pretty good. Newcomer Max Records is fine as Max. James Gandolfini stands out as the voice of Carol, the leader of the “Wild Things”, who is a lot like Max.
One of the most interesting things about the making of the film is that the large creatures are not CGI characters, but are actually stunt actors in real costumes, created by the Jim Henson company. Jonze spent months in post-production using computers to add their facial expression and to get their mouths to move. The effect is very impressive.
“Where the Wild Things Are” is rated PG for the serious situations and themes and some mild violence. Again, younger kids may want to watch this, but don’t expect them to understand why they’re watching so much anger and sadness and fighting and pain involving this little boy.
On The Official Kid Critic Report Card, “Where the Wild Things Are” gets a C+. Apparently Jonze’s first cut of the movie was even more serious and adult than this one and he was asked to lighten-it-up a little bit. Maybe that would have been a better film, because this version, even though it’s interesting, didn’t really grab me emotionally.