The Sad Dark Things in Where The Wild Things Are

More on Spike Jonze's Excellent Daring Film Adaptation

Oct 15, 2009

Going boldly where so many bad children's book-adaptations have gone before, Where The Wild Things Are stays true to the source material, expanding on it wonderfully.

Until Where The Wild Things Are, the best indication of Jonze's voice as an artist has come from his music video work. That's not to say Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. aren't very accomplished films, but in both cases, the voice of the screenwriter (Charlie Kaufman) is predominant.

From videos like Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet" and Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice", we see not just Jonze's imagination, but his predilection toward worlds divided into the mundane (real) and the fantastic (real if you believe in it). Jonze melds these two in the wild things world. Carol suggests he and Max can build a world within a world where "only the things you want to happen would happen", but even in Max's fantasy, it's not possible.

Jim Henson Puppetry and Max Records Provide The Life In Front of the Camera

For all the inventiveness Jonze and Eggers pull out in the storytelling, a wrong choice for Max could have shipwrecked the whole film. The film's emotional core rests on the shoulders of Records who was only 8 years old when shooting started, and the young actor handles the responsibility in stride.

With very little flesh and blood to interact with (the wild things come courtesy of Henson puppetry with CGI around the face), Records hits all the notes Jonze needs him to. We see him as ferocious child-animal, wrestling his poor dog to the ground in the film's opening, as well as sensitive introvert, brooding over the idea of the sun burning out.

Of the voice cast, Gandolfini proves the most inspired choice as the somewhat manic-depressive wild thing, struggling to keep his family from falling apart. It's a fantastic voice ensemble, though, with Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker all putting their distinct mark on their characters. Getting emotion out of a sound booth can be difficult and no one here is flat, not for a second.

Writing that Where The Wild Things Are doesn't pander to its audience is unfair, in a sense, because it's not really tailored for (younger) children. The tone isn't nearly dark as, say, Pan's Labyrinth and there isn't anything inappropriate for younger audiences. What's most impressive is how the film relates larger truths about family, (and in an even larger sense) human existence and interaction through a child's language. Even though the film is created from a child's perspective, it's hard to imagine throngs of children falling for something this melancholic and meditative.

There are slower moments in the film -- quite a lot of See Max Run set to Karen O's freaky, folk soundtrack -- but these can be forgiven in exchange for the dead-on approximation of a child's point-of-view. The totality of single emotions and the swinging back and forth between these opposing ends of the spectrum -- Where The Wild Things Are nails everything that is wonderful and awful about being that age.

Jonze and Eggers spare us nothing, aside from force-fed mini-morals and all the other cringe-worthy stuff you would expect to find in a big studio kids book adaptation. People, both younger and older, are wild things with wild emotions -- no one is likable all the time. So if Where The Wild Things Are feels offbeat and a little bit different, it's only because it dares to show people as they are, fangs and claws included.

VERDICT: If Where The Wild Things Are falls a little short of perfect, it's only out of an unwillingness to compromise its vision of tumultuous childhood. A must-see for children ages 6 to 96.

The copyright of the article The Sad Dark Things in Where The Wild Things Are in Fantasy Films is owned by Zachary Herrmann. Permission to republish The Sad Dark Things in Where The Wild Things Are in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.