Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
Grade:C
I’m not that old, so I shouldn’t have that much distance on the following: do I just completely forget what it was like to be a kid? So many people have discussed Where the Wild Things Are as being a movie that truly captures the essence of childhood, that reflects the experience so well and effectively that it brought them back to a similar place of child-like wonderment as they watched the film. I guess my childhood was different from this film’s sense of it, because if we’re to believe director and co-screenwriter’s Spike Jonze’s take on it, being a kid is hard.
Indeed, for Max (Max Records), things are pretty rough right now. His big sister’s friends just destroyed his awesome igloo snow fort, his mom (Catherine Keener) is tied between a dating life and a stressful job and never has time for him, and no one seems to be around to play in his rocket ship fort that he just built in his room. After an outburst to his mom, he runs off into the forest, sets sail on a small boat, and lands on an island where he discovers several Wild Things. As Max looks on, Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) is recklessly destroying the huts that the Wild Things live in because KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose) has left him and their clan to be with mythical Bob and Terri.
Max sees a lot of himself in Carol. (Side note: why wouldn’t he? Though the film never tries to situate these Wild Things as either “real fantasy world!” or “figment of Max’s imagination!” we have to draw our own conclusions. As someone who thought the film was flawed, I’m more inclined to think “construct of the writers’ necessity!” but a tamer reading of the film places these Wild Things as mere extensions of Max’s emotions.) Anyhoozle… Max stops Carol from destroying anything more, and the Wild Things eventually assume Max as their new king when he promises to eliminate all sadness from their lives. Lofty goals, Max! Did you not see what happens when these Things get angry?
So begins scene after scene of Max chatting with the Wild Things (mostly with Carol) about… whatever Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers could come up with to fill time and bring this thing to feature-length. Hint, though: notice how there’s only one scene at the beginning of the film with Max at school and the teacher talks about how the Sun will eventually burn out? Bets on whether or not that’ll come up later?
If I sound harsh, I apologize. But honestly: this film’s source material was ten sentences long, for heaven’s sake. Crazier things have been adapted, and I have no problem with taking a beloved kids’ book as a springboard, but there just isn’t any material here for a feature-length film. Jonze and Eggers have filled in the Wild Things with some nice shading, clearly delineating all of the Wild Things, if not doing so by having them speak dialogue that’s a little on-the-nose. As an example: Douglas (voiced by Chris Cooper), clearly Carol’s right-hand man and best friend, says so explicitly after being introduced. Judith (voiced by Catherine O’Hara), too, constantly emotional and bitchy, feels it necessary to keep saying that she’s emotional and doesn’t like things.
This all would work, I suppose, and would work in a less annoying way, if the Wild Things were better situated in a realm of either fantasy or reality. Instead, they end up in a no-man’s land of heavy-handed metaphor. About ten minutes after meeting the Wild Things, I found myself constantly groaning in aggravation in the general direction of Spike Jonze. We get it! THEY’RE METAPHORS FOR CHILDHOOD. Holy God is it clear that they’re metaphors. The Wild Things are messy, emotional, erratic creations, wont to tear a tree out of the ground in frustration or rip an arm off of someone who’s pissed them off. As such, they’re also a terrible headache to spend upwards of an hour with, as I’m sure kids sometimes can be (I haven’t spent much time around children since I’ve been one). You want to yell at them to just quiet down and give Mom TEN SECONDS OF PEACE!!! More than that, though, this is a film that desperately wants to be loved. It’s so pleased with itself. The tender close-ups of Max getting a hug from a Wild Thing that you can feel are put in to make. You. Respond. Emotionally. To. It.
Gorgeous cinematography, though.
It simply turns messy when all is said and done. You can tell (and Jonze has said as much in interviews) that the filmmakers were aiming to replicate the emotional complexity of being a kid where you don’t really have a firm grasp on everything and emotional highs and lows come and go at will. The problem is that this comes across too well. There is no narrative to ground the emotional tones of the film. It’s one scene after the other of Max talking with a Wild Thing and each conversation is supposed to make us feel like we did as a kid. Instead, we just end up like a Wild Thing, wanting to throw dirt clods around or rip a tree out of the ground and chuck it to get our frustration with the film out.
Or, y’know, go home and build an awesome fort like Max does.
Bottom Line:
In many ways, there’s nothing more insufferable than a film that wants desperately to be loved.
© 2004-2009 Ben Waldorf. Posted October 31, 2009. IMDB