Film Review: Where the Wild Things Are

Afternoon Kenny Bloggins,

Attached is my film review of Spike Jonze's new film. Why not take a read, go see it, then tell me how wrong I am before coming over to my house to spit in my face? Go on. It'll make you feel better.

Where the Wild Things Are.

Childhood nostalgia has, for many years, been a well mined area for Hollywood to exploit for commercial gain. The film adaptations of most of the Dr. Seuss works as well as versions of beloved children's television series such as Thunderbirds and Inspector Gadget were designed to tap into these shared recollections. Upcoming retoolings such as the A-Team and Knight Rider confirm that the trend will continue for a while yet, presumably until there is nothing left to film and everyone has to go back to making original cinema.

Repackaging nostalgic gems has been at the heart of blockbuster season again this year, with the G.I. Joe action figure getting the celluloid treatment. This followed on from the commercially successful, but almost unwatchable, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This tactic is aimed at the 25 - 30 year old movie going public who remember the subject matter from their youth and will curiously buy a ticket to see if the old magic can be recaptured on screen.

It's not surprising that in the current film making climate, where studios are looking after their budgets very carefully, Hollywood is not willing to take huge risks. As well as film versions of TV and literary classics, there are umpteen remakes of previous hit movies, exploiting movie going experiences previously held dear by film goers. These tactics mostly result in comforting profits, but films that are less than compelling artistically. The studios are looking after their financial success but flirting with creative bankruptcy.

So it follows that beloved children's literature will get the same treatment. Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are arrived on our screens to take us back to the world created in Maurice Sendak's beautifully illustrated book about an imaginative little boy called Max.

This very short tale tells of Max being sent to bed early as punishment for creating havoc in the house. In his sulk, he imagines himself transported away from nasty parents, to a forest world, where wild and incredible beasts roam. He quickly befriends the Wild Things who make him their king and Max and the Wild Things play in the forest, before Max eventually returns home to family and to his supper, which was still warm on the table.

The task in adapting this, mostly illustrated world, into a full working screenplay was no mean task in itself, especially as the source material contains fewer than 350 words. It has to be mentioned that the adaptation itself caused some post production controversy, leading to various re-shoots and issues with the Studio before it was finally released. Spike Jonze wanted to direct a very stylised and adult opus on the nature of childhood that made the studio wary of the film's commercial potential, as they saw the source material as something to be aimed solely at the children's market.

Despite these wrangles, you feel that Jonze stayed true to his vision, as the resulting film is difficult to categorise and it wrestles with who it's aimed at. Children will definitely enjoy the ideas of travel, fun and danger that come from Max's journey to the land of the Wild Things, who are all realised amasingly faithfully by the creators at the Jim Henson Workshop.

Yet the film does contend with some adult themes from the outset that the youngest of children might struggle to sustain interest in. In fact some of the issues are ones that will leave adults scratching their heads and wondering if the comforting children's story they remembered had such an intricate subplot the first time they read it.

The film begins with Max (newcomer Max Records) struggling to find meaning in a world that is changing against his will. In his heart he is still a boy, wanting to immerse himself in the world of the imagination and the world of play, yet he is growing quickly and finds himself in the awkward stage where the agonies of puberty are just around the corner and the veil of childhood is just beginning to lift. Max's sister is growing into her adolescence and her smashing of Max's fort sanctuary shows her disregard for his world. His mothers dating and work commitments mean that she can no longer devote herself to him as she did when he was younger.

His changes even manifest themselves physically, as when an argument between mother and son erupts he bites her, as he probably did as a younger child, yet now his growing physical strength causes him to hurt her sufficiently for him to be punished. Max's world is no longer one he can understand, and the spectre of age reveals many truths that he wished he could hide under the cloak of childhood fantasy. In a science class, his teacher reveals that one day the sun will die reflecting the notion that his endless summer of childhood will soon be replaced with the agony of puberty, lingering on the horizon.

Max reconciles this changing world by retreating into his imagination and creating the fantasy land of the Wild Things, his own personal Never Land, where he is the king and can run free all day with his friends. However, it's no coincidence that, like in Peter Pan, the Wild Things perpetual youth gives them the qualities of children we, as adults, prefer to forget - insecurity, arrogance, fear, frustration, bullying.

In Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) Max finds a kindred spirit, the creative force of the group, with whom Max can live out his fantasies. Yet their relationship turns sour when Carol's childhood selfishness causes him to hold onto things too hard. As Max explores a desire to make new friends or act independently, Carol can no longer reconcile his friends divided interest.

When another of the Wild Things, KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose), branches out of the insulated world to find a new path, Max begins to see how the adult world can hold as many possibilities as dangers. The more Carol becomes embittered and the spectre of his violence grows (echoing Max's own violent and selfish actions in the early part of the film), Max is shown the dangers and limitations of remaining a child forever.

Much like Wendy realises that Peter Pan remaining forever a boy condemns him to isolation, so too Max's own journey gives him the space he needs to understand that by remaining a child, he too will be stranded on the metaphorical 'island' of the Wild Things.

These subtle comments on the nature of childhood serve to pull apart myths about the wonder of youth and Jonze's use of a famed children's book that is tied up in many of the audience's own nostalgia's is an excellent mechanism to do this. The director entertains us by expertly depicting the freedoms of the imagination and evoking the exuberance of youth that for many people, the original book represents, then reminds us, much like Peter Pan does, that childhood can be spiteful, hierarchical, bitterly conservative and violent. He reminds us that to remain in this world isolates us forever.

Overall, this film wrestles successfully with both the freedoms and limitations of living in a world constructed solely in the imagination and the cruel necessity of growing up. As such, the film may never find the niche audience that the studio was looking for.

Despite this, it cannot be argued that Spike Jonze's picture doesn't both entertain and raise questions that the audience will struggle to reconcile. Wild Things has at least tried to re-establish the creative integrity of the Hollywood machine, giving it at least one hero to show for its efforts.