Where The Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is a sad, yet beautiful, reminder of how children's stories should be told. These stories should be about childhood, about growing up and all the emotions that are experienced in those early years of life, so that children and adults alike can relate to them. Which may make them dark and depressing, goofy and silly, confusing and wondrous, exciting and quiet, happy and full of life. Stories for and about children have been told utilizing these, and other, emotions since time began, and films for children did the same until recently, when some of the emotional spark has been lost to generic, dull, and easy feature films.

But Where the Wild Things Are stands out from the assembly line films, the cookie cutter stories, or, in other words, the average stuff. Writer/Director Spike Jonze, along with his co-writer Dave Eggers, have created not only a beautiful film to look at, but also a magical film to experience. We don't need to get too corny, but the visuals in WTWTA are truly stunning. After Max, the young boy central to the story, runs away from home and travels to an island full of wonderful things, is when Jonze really shows off his stuff. The Wild Things themselves are gorgeous to look at, credit mostly due to the fact that each of them are real. And by real I mean full body suits, with actual tangibility, and not simply some CGI rendering of a creature (though, smartly, the faces were rendered digitally). Carol, KW, Alexander, Douglas, Judith, Ira, and the Bull all become actual characters because of it. The world they live in, with the stick huts, the enormous fort they construct with Max, the desert past the forest and the beach past the desert, all make it seem like it is a place that actually exists.

It must be said that the visuals aren't the only things driving WTWTA. The writing is where the really powerful stuff lies. Jonze, and Eggers especially, truly know how to convey human emotion, and do so with amazing, and occasionally frightening, results. The joy in Max, and in all his Wild Thing friends, is shared by the viewer. As an audience member, you can't help but connect with them on some level. But for as much joy, there is equal sadness. Max finds himself in tears a number of times, whether it's because he feels hurt or because he caused another it, but this is something most of the children in the audience should recognize in themselves, and the adults can remember of themselves. But it is fear that Jonze and Eggers really nail. I found myself frightened by the intensity of the Wild Things, especially by Carol. I don't know the last time I felt that by something made for and about children. Carol has real pain and anger, and it makes him scary, which we, as a society, have seemed to want to censor from children. It's as if we think they cannot handle it, as if they didn't see it every day in each other or on the streets or in their homes.

Where the Wild Things Are is an excellent film, one that some will criticize as being too slow, or too scary, or not fun enough. It's a shame though, because Jonze has crafted himself an amazing film, one I believe will stand proud for decades, right along side the book it was adapted from.

Genre - Fantasy (4)

Screenplay (4)
Acting (4)
Production (4)
Directing (4)