Into the Wild

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. I tried to write this right away but a busy work schedule and then the unavailability of the Internet got in my way and eventually I felt more pressure. So now I am a bit late to the game when I could have been early! So I’m not going to waste any time because I have quite bit too say about this movie, for which the bar was set pretty high from the start. If I could have bought my ticket the day I heard it was being made I would have done so as it springs from a beloved book of my childhood and appeared to be one of the few occasions where something nostalgic was being made by a non-sellout director. Rare. Like nearly everyone within a certain demographic of my age group, just seeing the trailer was a phenomenal experience -- and not just because the exquisitely edited visuals perfectly paired with a haunting rerecording of a song by Arcade Fire were was pretty much lab tested to appeal to 20-somethings. It was a promise of a return to something cherished and after seeing the movie, I will say that it is certainly its own beast, but one that could create its own memories.

Having a younger sister and many younger cousins, I have seen many children's movies in my time and this film is notable if for nothing else the uniqueness of its approach of tailoring a story to be both about and for a child. Many of the people -- myself included -- who will enjoy this movie are well above the age of chasing a pet around the house in a wolf costume. Over the opening weekend only 27 percent of those seeing the movie were families as one might have guessed by the much of the advertising being aimed at an older audience. Because of its more mature appeal, it could indulge this opportunity and easily lose focus on how it reaches children in an age where most television and movies are eye candy -- especially those above the Sesame Street age. Neither of those are the point of this movie. There is a dirt-clod fight that I specifically remember thinking could put bad ideas in little boys’ heads and would be quite out of place on PBS. What this movie sets out to accomplish is reaching down -- quite literally -- to the child’s level to explore the world through his eyes and like a grown-up movie often does, explore an emotion a child feels and help him or her understand it a little better.

Children’s literature is generally much better than film at capturing this concept, even if it must do so with only a few words and generally fewer pictures. Take Where The Wild Things are, a book by Maurice Sendak published in the 1960s and comprising only nine scenes. In the story a young Max acts up and is sent to his room, from which he is transported to the land of the wild things where he becomes king and begins a wild rumpus, only to then return home where his food is still warm. What I remember in reading this myself -- and later as a fifth-grader helping a first-grader learn -- was the idea of wanting to escape for whatever reason, discovering that doing so isn’t all its cracked up to be, and concluding that maybe its better to find what’s waiting for you at home. Sure it might not explicitly state much of what I’ve surmised, but that is the nature of good literature. The book is remembered because little boys and little girls found some joy in the idea of exploring the unknown and comfort in warm supper at the end, even if as children they could not understand or express why.

So how does this movie fit in? Like the book, the movie follows Max (Portland native Max Records), who here is the imaginative son of a single mother (Katherine Keener), a loving but overstretched woman, and a sister too caught up in her own (pre?)teen world to spend time with her little brother or defend him against her friends. Most of the movie, however, takes place after he sails away to the land of the wild things and becomes king after bragging about powers he makes up on the spot when the initially terrifying creatures threaten to eat him. It soon turns out the monsters aren’t so monstrous after all and have been looking for a leader to solve their problems. There’s a great couple of lines that sum up this whole interlude of the movie and I will not spoil them here. What I will say is that the problem these creatures face is a relatable one: loneliness and the sadness it creates. I honestly cannot think of a children’s film that has the boldness to confront these ideas and spend its entire length exploring them from a child’s perspective. The land of the wild things is essentially Max’s manifestation of his sense of loneliness and his attempt to understand these feelings. I’m sure there are other films that deal with the motion, so perhaps it is not unique. But it is certainly uncommon.

When I say that the movie the follows Max’s perspective, I mean to say that director Spike Jonze, who is no stranger to letting imagination overtake reality, attempts to wholly recreate a world as Max would build it and as Max would see it. I did not make the connection until reading it in an article online, but a noticeable element of the superlative cinematography is how low the angles are that he choses. Combine this with the frequently manic camera work and you have an attempt to view the world as a child sees it -- expansive and frequently moving. The narrative flows is childlike as well in that, honestly, it often does not make sense. Fantastic and nonsensical elements move the plot along as Max never seems to make sturdy progress in his attempt to rid the land of sadness. It switches from forest to sea to desert so quickly that the geography could only have been plotted by a child. More than anything else, Max never seems to be precocious or able to solve all of the problems because he is somehow special. His logic doesn’t make sense except in the way that a child might try to solve a complex problem by assuming simple solutions like building a fort or having a dirt-clod fight would work. Overall the tone -- with not small nod to the brilliant voice work of James Galdolfini who, like in The Sopranos, excels at bringing a strong sense of melancholy to a character one would not automatically connect it to -- is inescapable and it is those who do not give children enough credit who will doubt that they can sense, even if they can’t explain, why they want Max to return home.

I expect a great deal of how well the movie relates to the concept of childhood sadness comes from cowriter Dave Eggers, whom I first thought an odd choice but after seeing the movie can understand. Eggers is a writer known for his creative nonfiction, such as A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, several novels and as the founder of the literary journal/publisher McSweeny’s. AHWOSG, a Pulitzer finalist, is a memoir of sorts about becoming, in his early 20s, the guardian of his much younger brother after both of their parents die in a fairly short period of time. His brother Toph, who I believe at the time of the deaths is about the age of Max, is the secondary main character of the story as Eggers writes about not just his own trials but those of a boy who his lost both parents. After watching the movie I could see how raising a boy who has watched both of his parents die would create a window into childhood sadness that very few are unfortunate enough to experience. Unsurprisingly the subject appears to be a reoccurring theme in his work, including in Away We Go, Eggers' first screenplay, which focuses on a couple pregnant with a child but features a side plot with a character who lost her parents at about the same age as Eggers. There is a bit of backlash in some circles to him that portrays him as smug and egotistical, citing McSweeny’s, AHWOSG (in fairness pretty much owns up to it there), his social-justice-themed series of books, and Away We Go. The last one I recently watched and I found it funny, although the characters in it do feed into the self-absorption critique of his work. The two protagonists are also presented as feeling and acting a bit superior to those they come across on their journey, who are mostly portrayed as deeply flawed in comparison. That said, I enjoyed the movie for the most part (although more so the broad comedy than the more serious moments). I think he has a future in screenwriting after seeing these two movies.

Side note here is that I am a bit disappointed in his decision to pen and essentially self-publish (through McSweeny’s) a 300-page novel treatment of what is already a fine picture book. We don’t need an emo version a children’s classic just because he either wants to cash in or be able to make his own mark on the story. Your movie is good enough.

This movie is also good enough to stand as a quite different but certainly adequate companion to the original book. I imagine that as a small child, one could become excited by reading about Max and looking at the pictures and, as the end of those single-digit years approaches, watch this movie and grasp a somewhat more mature yet still accessible story about growing up. I like to think that someday that same child could rewatch that movie (by downloading it directly to a TV or mobile device or however we will watch movies in coming years) as a teenager and discover the poetry of Jonze’s cinematography and then maybe later in his 20s see it again and get a little nostalgic and a little wistful in realizing those years of childhood innocence have passed. Critical review of the film have been mixed and I think it might be the type where those reviewing are too far from childhood to see how a young could understand this movie and perhaps those of us who grew up in a world much more isolated than those of our parents find the themes of the movie more compelling. I have heard many people talk about how much they have liked the movie and one in particular mentioned that one should sees it with someone special and I think there is a reason for that: this is the type of movie you want others to experience with you. For all its sadness the movie itself is not really sad -- it is in fact just the opposite. It is about finding comfort. That more than anything is why I think this book can appeal to children and that is why this is the type of movie that I, like many others, can't help but want to share.

P.S. To stay in compliance with new FTC regulations, I should mention that I received a free pass to a screening of the movie provided by the studio.