Where The Wild Things Are

Adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's book.
3 reviews

Screenings

We were such great fans of the original story that this film was an eagerly awaited cinematic experience in our household. I developed an interest in it as a small child, and my kids had also independently been introduced to it at school so, what a treat!

What a let down.

This film is not visually appealing nor is it cinematically engaging. Much of the dialogue is a mumble of incoherence and although I tried to clutch at any passing story threads, they were not so much threads as wisps.

In short, and I wish it had been, this was a disappointing journey to Where the Wild Things Are and I wish we hadn't bothered.
Where The Wild Things Are could, on a good day, perhaps be described as a post-modern Wizard of Oz: A young boy escapes from his troubled home to a fantasy world inhabited by weird and rather dysfunctional creatures - all of whom are aspects of people back in the real world or parts of his own pscyhe - to learn that, despite the freedom and magical encounters of the new world, there really is no place like home.

This film is no Wizard of Oz though. An incredibly slight (though much-loved) children's picture book has been turned into an incredibly slight film without much plot to speak of. Unfortunately there's not much in the way of visuals to distract from the lack of story. The Wild Things themselves are fun for a while in a shoddy 1970's Mr Snuffleupagus kind of way but the setting is so sparse and dreary that adults will find their minds wandering to more interesting places and children will wish they were watching The Muppets Movie instead.

Where The Wild Things are is by no means a terrible film - there's just not very much to it sadly.
The much-anticipated film of Maurice Sendak’s much-loved book is whimsical, charming and much more for adults than children.

The film faithfully draws as much of its central narrative as it can from the book. Max is sent to bed without supper for his naughty behaviour at home, and runs away in an imaginary journey to the land of the wild things - monsters who he befriends and rules over, until homesickness leads him to return home in time for supper.

The film looks and sounds sumptuous - the wild things are perfectly realised and utterly realistic. The score (by Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O) is pleasingly fresh and uplifting without being cloying - a trick that the whole film pulls off. Like the story, Where The Wild Things Are says something about how children deal with feelings - in particular, anger. But this, like Max’s absent father, is a theme which is dealt with very lightly.

The film adds much more characterisation of the wild things, and in doing so expands on the brief glimpse we get of Max’s life at home and school at the start of the film. There are strong echoes of Max’s anger, frustration and sadness in the creatures he rules over, and his relationship with his mother and sister is played out in the community which he imagines.

It’s as dreamy and surreal as you might expect from Spike Jonze, a director who is rarely lacking in imagination. The dialogue is pleasingly down to earth, with the monsters speaking like both adults and children as they play out a story about childhood, family and relationships.

Without a clear driving story, with all its ambiguities and talking, Where The Wild Things Are is indeed about childhood rather than a children’s film - and the one proviso would be that young children could be rather bored by it. For grown-ups, it’s a delicate and moving story, beautifully realised and well worth a watch.
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