In Maurice Sendak's beloved 1963 book, "Where the Wild Things Are," young Max, after being sent to bed without his supper for being a "wild thing," imagines creatures that roar terrible roars and gnash terrible teeth and roll terrible eyes.
They did not bare their terrible feelings and expose their terrible neuroses.
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But they sure do in Spike Jonze's head-scratching opus "Where the Wild Things Are," which features monsters with baggage so weighty that the movie's emotional core becomes a reimagining of the book's 300-word fairy-tale vibe as dramatic as the "Star Trek" rethink.
Set in a suburban milieu that could be anytime in the past 25 years, young Max (Max Records, quite a find) gets understandably upset when the older kids play a little too rough in the snow, so he takes it out on the house and his mom (Catherine Keener, playing yet another put-upon divorcee. Will her on-screen persona ever find happiness?).
Max, feeling neglected during one of Mom's dates, ruins it by demanding "Woman, feed me!" and chomping her on the shoulder. Sent to bed without supper, he takes off down the street, finds a boat and we're off sailing.
When he gets to the wild land, he finds monsters smashing their own houses (allegory!), speaking in idiomatic English, beset by insecurity and asking Max if he, as the wildest thing of all and newly minted king, can "keep out all the sadness?" Wild, yet sensitive — of course, just like Max.
Written — perhaps using their shrinks' notes on themselves — by Jonze and Dave Eggers ("A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"; his presence will tell both fans and detractors everything they need to know about the movie), "Wild Things" fleshes out the book not by externalizing Max's id as much as by exposing him to adultish concerns that he's either witnessed or will be experiencing too soon.
In 1993, Sendak gave a groundbreaking interview to cartoonist Art Spiegelman. Rendered in Spiegelman's expressionistic hand, Sendak discusses his vision of kid-dom. "Childhood is deep and rich," Sendak says. "It's vast, mysterious and profound." But it's also "cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth."
There's nothing that dramatic in "Wild Things," but Sendak's point is that childhood is often not idyllic but terrifying — a child is at the mercy of the world. And the movie operates as if Jonze and Eggers have this piece memorized.
Primary monster Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini; you better believe you think of Tony Soprano as Carol smashes stuff) clearly has feelings for KW (Lauren Ambrose) and thinks of obedient Douglas (Chris Cooper) as his right hand. Judith and Ira (Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker) are a sometimes-loving, sometimes-bickering couple. Everyone is mean to, or ignores, Alexander (Paul Dano). Clearly, these are bits of Max he's trying to come to terms with.
The monsters are brilliantly realized. The furry costumes have a visual weight computer animation is still generations away from capturing, though the faces are CGI and extremely well done. (They're so expressive, in fact, that it strikes you the movie would play better and more thoughtfully as a silent film.)
To everyone's credit, especially longtime Jonze cinematographer Lance Acord, the movie is gorgeous, light playing off of the deserts and forests and cozy interiors with equal dramatic weight. When Carol shows Max a miniature world — sort of a primitive's idea of a delicate train layout — he's built in a cave, it's a smart joke about scale, about how Max is struggling with how to make sense of his world. Later, they contrast it by building the ultimate fort, massive in scale, before problems in the new family get the best of everyone. "I wish you guys had a mom," Max says. Even if she's hanging out with guys who aren't a never-discussed Dad, she's a better deal than being king of his own (internal) kingdom.
Though very little kids might be scared by some parts (the action scenes are more reminiscent of "Jackass," another Jonze creation, than he might care to admit), slightly older kids might simply be bored by all the yammering, which raises the question exactly who is this for?
Sendak himself often opined that he saw the distinction between kids and adult books as mere marketing, which might explain the occasionally leveled criticism that "Wild Things" isn't as much a classic children's book as a bunch of well-meaning adults' idea of a classic children's book. This is a "kidult's" idea of a children's movie — suitable not for the young, but likely to be considered profound by the sorts of over-21s who long for a rumpus-making vision of childhood that Sendak never believed quite existed in the first place.
