The wild rumpus starts
Where the Wild Things Are / Director Spike Jonze has always been one of our most creatively playful contemporary filmmakers (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation). Coupled with co-screenwriter and literary wunderkind Dave Eggers, he created a version of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are that explores the darkest nuances of the source material, making for a film that’s rich, compellng, disturbing and ultimately, a quiet triumph amidst the rumpus. This isn’t so much a movie for kids as opposed to a movie for adults who loved the book as children. It’s not an adaptation, but a genuine expansion and true re-imagining of the original concept.
Some may find the first act too long and too lacking of big monsters, but what Jonze and Eggers do here is firmly give this surreal, dream of a tale a root in the real world. Young Max is anything but an adorable kid in a furry costume. As portrayed by Max Records from The Brothers Bloom, he’s the prime example of the pouting, self-destructive, self-centered holy terrors that most children have the capacity to become, and that most movies choose not to showcase. In this sense, Max is one of the most acutely well-rounded and observed cinematic child characters since Elliott in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and Records provides a naturalistic performance of what is essentially a brat.
Max is friendless and feels he doesn’t receive enough attention from his over-worked single mom (a fantastically empathetic Catherine Keener). When he witnesses his mother kissing her new boyfriend (cameo by Mark Ruffalo), he throws an obnoxious tantrum before running off into the night. He finds a boat at a river’s edge and sets off to the high seas, eventually coming upon an island where the wild things are.
The finished product is a departure from grade-school memories. Sure, the basic elements feel familiar: Max’s white fur cat-suit, the monsters with the giant heads, even the scowl on the petulant child’s face. But what’s added in film provides a nuance that is decidedly adult and anything but pretentious or precious. Each monster (now with proper names courtesy of Eggers) is more than just an opportunity for FX and CGI, but an aspect of Max’s complicated life.
Most subversive is a disturbing allusion that Max’s absent father may have abused him. When the most maternal of the monsters implores Max to crawl into her mouth so that she can hide him from another out-of-control, rampaging monster, the scene isn’t played for laughs and is genuinely frightening.
Moments of crowd-pleasing release come in the forms of dirt fights, comforting sleep piles of warm fur, and hooting and hollering at the edge of a cliff during a gorgeous sunset. But it’s the unexpected moments that the movie gets just right: Max lays under his mother’s desk, fidgeting with the toes of her panty-hose, a giant version of Max’s dog walks through a desert for absolutely no reason and the boy feels a need to write his name as a sign of ownership on almost everything he comes in contact with–including the opening Warner Brothers logo. Yeah Yeah Yeahs lead singer Karen O and composer Carter Burwell provide a playful soundtrack with the right amount of sympathy and edgy sensibility. Even the shakiness of the hand-held cam, usually a sign of creatively empty big-budget cinematography is appropriate here. Props to frequent Jonze director of photography Lance Acord for giving the impression that the movie was filmed by a child.
Call the film indulgent and meandering, but everything serves a purpose. When one creature asks Max, “Will you keep out all the sadness?” and Max assures him that he will, we realize that is what Where the Wild Things Are is all about. Even as adults, we go to our happy places.
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