Let me begin with a little understatement: It was worth waiting in line outside the Silver Theater for almost an hour to see this early.
It seems strange to me that Where the Wild Things Are (trailers) is only Spike Jonze's third film as director—following Being John Malkovich and Adaptation—and his first in seven years. He's been so busy over the years shooting music videos, producing films (most notably those with Charlie Kaufman as screenwriter and/or director), "presenting" The Fall, and, of course, giving the world Jackass, that his impact in contemporary cinema seems greater than his relative dearth of films would suggest. It certainly doesn't hurt that Being John Malkovich and Adaptation are two of the best, most original, most visionary films of the past ten years. I guess I can't complain that he doesn't sit in the director's chair very often if it means that when he does, he knocks it clear out of the park.
Moving on from my man-crush on Jonze's filmography, I'd like to say a few words about the source-material. I guess my love for Sendak's book is hardly unusual, since whole generations have enjoyed it since its publication in 1963. There were other books of his on my shelves as well, In the Night Kitchen and an illustrated edition of The Nutcracker (with great, scary depictions of the Mouse King); needless to say, the illustrations were the real pleasure of these books, with their distinctiveness, imagination, and attention to detail. But particularly dear to my heart was a stuffed Bull-Headed, Human-Footed Wild Thing (the one dozing on the book's cover; simply called "the Bull" in the film), one of the key figures in my childhood stuffed-animal menagerie.
The reason I mention these things from my childhood is because that's what Where the Wild Things Are, book and film alike, are about. That seems like a no-brainer given that one is a children's book and the other (to an extent) a children's film; but unlike many such stories, childhood isn't just the setting, it's the subject. This is especially apparent in the film, which has a bit more time to spend with Max and more opportunity to explore and dwell on themes that were merely implicit in Sendak's book. Max, played by Portlander Max Records (previously seen this summer in Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom (trailer and clip), in which, interestingly, he played his WTWTA co-star Mark Ruffalo's character as a child), is a quintessential child—or, more precisely, a quintessential little boy. Everything that is present in a human being—joys, loves, thoughts, fears, angers, energy, enthusiasm—is bubbling up inside him, but without an adult's ability to hide or control it. There's no dissimulation with him; if he thinks or feels something, good or bad, he'll let you know. However, this is slowly being tempered by recognition of the consequences of his actions. For instance, after his sister hurts his feelings early on, he trashes her room, destroying a little home-made present from him to her in the process; his mother finds out and makes him clean up, but you can tell that what he's done dawns on him not when he's punished, but in the heartbreaking moment when he looks down at the destroyed present on the floor and futilely tries to put it back together.
If his lack of self-control means that he often acts out, even against the ones he loves, it also means that his imagination and creativity know no bounds. He hasn't yet been told that his ideas are stupid, that he needs to get a grip and be reasonable, that the sky isn't the limit—or, if he has, he hasn't begun believing it. Every situation for him is an opportunity for creativity, from building igloos in the snow to making forts in his bedroom to daydreaming in class to making up stories off the cuff for his mother. Going to the Wild Things' island is such a natural extension of this that he doesn't seem to think any of it is unusual in the slightest. At first, his life on the island is just an extension of his life back home, with all its creativity and overabundance of energy, but without the restraints of being told what to do (he is the King, after all). But eventually the senses of responsibility, regret, and consequence begin to appear there as well; feelings are hurt, relationships strained, people lash out with emotions they haven't yet learnt to articulate. Max returns home at the end because he realizes in some way that he can't retreat from growing up, that he has to learn how to deal with real life instead of running away from it.
I can't recall seeing such an honest, realistic depiction of what it's like to be a kid. Its focus isn't on the subjects of so many other children's stories—having fun, or solving childhood problems, or learning The Moral Of The Story, though those are present as well—but on childhood itself, on learning about yourself and other people, often painfully, on enjoying the comfort and security of swaddling clothes while straining against them at the same time. After seeing Where the Wild Things Are and how true and honest its vision of childhood is, I can't help but wonder if the majority of children's writers and filmmakers remember what it was like to be a child, or can relate at all to the children in their lives. Spike Jonze clearly does remember, and that's what his film captures: a full recollection of what childhood was like—joyous and limitless, but also fragile, inarticulate, and confused—but from an adult's perspective, knowing what will inevitably follow after. Where the Wild Things Are is a sincere, truthful, beautiful, deeply touching achievement.
And if all that weren't enough, Max and the Wild Things' dirt-clod fight might be the best action set-piece of the year.
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