Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things are is not perfect, it is a little too long and sometimes rather slow too, though in regard to the latter the pacing may have been deliberate. But it is a very effective adaptation of a great story. Where the Wild Things Are is beautiful to watch, the cinematography is spellbinding, while the sceneries, character movements and colours are mesmerising for the visual senses. The soundtrack adds to the mood wonderfully, it never feels intrusive or generic, instead it is a poignant and reflective soundtrack.

The story is a beautiful and affecting one, with a touch of weirdness perhaps, and the writing is very good that doesn't jar with the film's tone. The characters also add to the film's success, I can understand why people can't warm to Max but he is a complex character, I found him easy to relate to and is written adeptly. The supporting characters are weird but in a wonderful way, while the voice acting and acting are terrific especially from Max Records who is just exceptional. Overall, a beautiful, poignant and haunting film, depressing it is but that was intentional. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This is a huge success, and I believe that it will reach that status now called "classic," being experienced over and over in whatever ways that classics will in the future.

I'll let others note the purity in the way that sharp childhood is evoked. It is the emotional center of the thing. I'll be more interested here in noting the cinematic use of space. Jonze is famous for this, and how he can connect it to the folds in the narrative.

"Folds" in this context have to do with nesting of narrative elements. For instance the "real world" segments feature eating (twice), fort (twice), snowball fight, wild suit, pileon, pulling at toes, lost marriage, broken model of a heart, being king, son/sun dying and so on. The "wild world" features the same things twisted in ways that suggest the real narrative describing the inner character of Max. This "folding" gives us a place to stand and engages us more deeply, as a key narrative device. There is even a smaller inner fold where Carol (the Max surrogate) makes a model of his world, hidden in the desert. And another where Max enters KW.

I am more interested in the spatial folding. Yup, the way that Jonze has decided to set up and elaborate a vocabulary of movement.

Here's what we have, I think. I have only seen this once and will have to wait for DVD study to confirm it.

The scenes I am working with here are the ones with physical motion, where both the camera and the subjects move: the dogchasing, snowball fight, the amazing encounter with the waves when approaching the island, the rumpus and then the dirtball fight. Frozen motionpaths are in the fort's appendage, the "pile," and indicated by the stickweaving in the global fort and houses.

I believe these all use the same motion template. When someone invents a movie annotation tool where we can find and describe this, it will be easy to check and show. Right now it is an impression, but I got the feeling when watching that wave scene (in IMAX) that I would see the same motion paths in the forthcoming rumpus. Perhaps it was the appearance of the ululating sound that was used every time something got frantic, and by that time twice already. Perhaps it was the obvious reference to the Hokusai woodblock ("The Great Wave off Kanagawa"), where a wild wave becomes an actor, a wild thing dwarfing an iconic mountain, whose shape I thought I also saw on-screen.

I would not be surprised either if Spike used a sigla to denote this motion (like Joyce does in "Finnegans Wake") and that the sigla was KW, denoting the actual paths, the K in plan and the W in the vertical plane. Thus, KW swallowing/eating Max, apart from the obvious vaginal association also takes on a deeply cinematic one, worthy of "Adaptation." I know the work on this was done in Melbourne. Could it be that this apparent one-man shop "Digital Rein" managed this? In an unconnected area, am I misremembering? I recall the phrase was "Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!" (not "start").

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I attended an early screening with my 8 year old daughter; we're both big fans of Sendak in general and this book in particular, and I quite like Spike Jonze as well. But this did not prepare us for the moody, almost downbeat atmosphere through most of the film, nor the sense of immediacy and almost hyper-realism combined with astoundingly fanciful imagery. It is such an odd movie! And yet, when it was over, we turned to each other smiling a melancholy smile and said, "I loved it." The expansion of the tiny story into a feature-length film is so subtle that you barely sense it happening. There isn't an artificial new plot laid over the bones of the original -- it's simply expanded at every turn and very gently stretched out to feature length. The voice performances are wonderful, and the costumes are magnificent, as is the one major visual addition to the material (which I won't give away). Enjoy!

Where the Wild Things Are, one of the most beloved children's books, comes to the big screen in one of the most highly anticipated films of the year. Spike Jonze, the man responsible for Being John Malcovich, Adaptation, and several Beastie Boys music videos including "Sabotage", brings the tale to life. I must admit, I have been anxiously awaiting this film for several months, something I don't like to do too often as it sets up for a potential major let down.

Well, that didn't happen this time.

We follow Max (Max Records), a boy who is lonely and misunderstood. His sister doesn't pay attention to him, his mother is busy with work and her boyfriend, and he has worries at school. All he wants is attention and to belong. One night, he finally breaks and runs away. He makes his way to the woods and to the waters edge. There he finds a small boat and set out on the open sea, leaving everything behind him.

He comes across an island and goes ashore. There he finds a group of monsters in turmoil. Max seizes his opportunity and confronts the group. He tells them that he is a great king and help them solve their problems.

I don't want to give too much of the story away because I feel like telling it would ruin some of the magic. This is one of the most visually pleasing films I have seen in a long time. Jonze filmed in Australia. We are given vivid landscapes of lush forests, arid deserts, and beautiful shorelines, culminating in an almost Lord of the Rings like experience. These spectacular settings would rarely be beaten in magnificence in another film, but here they come second to the unbelievable special effects used for the monsters.

There are seven monsters on the island. Carol, Ira, Judith, KW, Douglas, Alexander, and The Bull. They all have unique features and are of massive size. Jonze could have gone two ways here. He could have completely made them all CG or he could have gone Jim Henson and turned them into Muppets. Instead, he carved a third path and combined the other two options. Max is able to interact extremely well with the gigantic puppet/suits, but the faces are edited with computer graphics, giving them startlingly realistic features and expressions. Making these monsters any different way would have been disastrous.

Another key aspect of the monsters is giving them a voice. Jonze chose excellent voice actors with James Gandolfini, Forrest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Dano, and Chris Cooper. They each have their own personality that compliments their physical and emotional characteristics.

Aside from the monsters, I was very impressed with Max. He is asked to do a very demanding thing: be a kid. That sounds easy, but it is very easily messed up. I'm interested in finding out how much freedom Jonze gave Records in certain scenes that called for him to go "wild". I can imagine directing young actors is not the easiest thing to do, but sometimes you catch a break when you get a talented one.

Giving life to these characters is a spectacular screenplay by Jonze and Dave Eggers (who wrote Away We Go). Their writing speaks to both kids and adults, using language that is meaningful and easy to understand. The things Max goes through every child feels growing up: loneliness, fear, belonging, etc.

There is so much to love about this movie. It speaks to the heart. But before you head out with the whole family, heed this warning. Some parts of this film might be too intense for younger audience members. Certain scene involving the monsters might be a bit too overwhelming. Yes, these monsters are friendly, but they are monsters, meaning they are large, intimidating, and somewhat scary.

Where the Wild Things Are will satisfy, entertain, and open your eyes. Spike Jonze poured everything he had into this film and the wait was well worth it. I hope you will fall under its spell just as I did.

If you haven't yet read Maurice Sendak's classic book, you can go ahead and do that now because its only 347 words long. This review I'm typing ended up being almost twice as long.

The point I'm making is that the original book didn't have much of a plot; its charm is in the imaginative illustrations. So the task of adapting the book to a 1 hr 41 min feature film was very ambitious, to say the least.

Let's complicate matters. In the original story the main character, Max, isn't a very likable protagonist. In almost every drawing he is shown with a malicious smirk on his face as he causes mischief such as chasing the family dog around with a fork, and then later commanding others to do his bidding with a tyrannical ferocity. I won't go into a discussion of Sendak's book, but let's just say it's not your typical cutesy fable or morality play.

Quirky and ofttimes cynical director Spike Jonze (known for the excellent "Being John Malkovich") was well suited for the job. During production, Jonze consulted Sendak himself, so we can guess that the author's original intent was mostly preserved. The result is that this is definitely no Disney flick. If you're looking to take your kid to a "Beauty and the Beast" entertainer, hmm, you might wanna look elsewhere.

Great, so if that didn't scare you off, let's talk about what's good about this film. One: they didn't corrupt the original bratty concept of Max. Although he's considerably softer around the edges than the fork wielding demonchild in the book, he's still not exactly likable, and so he's almost an anti-hero. Of course he's still a cute kid, so you can view him as that, but I like to think he's a troubled juvenile with some serious psychological issues brewing.

Two: the visuals & special effects are primo. The master puppeteers of Jim Henson's group (Henson himself died a few years prior to filming) provided amazing 7ft tall animatronic puppet suits with actors inside which were augmented by subtle cgi. In other words, to all my fellow cgi haters, this was done very tastefully. Sets and landscapes are jaw dropping, having been filmed in the majestic forests & deserts of Australia.

Three: the music is pretty cool. Composed and performed by Karen O (The Yeah Yeah Yeahs), the score and songs are edgy but still cinematic enough to blend with the film. Most of the songs are simple haunting melodies with an alternative rock vibe. If you're not familiar with Karen O, think of maybe Bjork.

Four: it has a pretty complex message that may be lost on young kids, but adults may get it. It's the idea that life's problems aren't so easy to solve, even when everyone does exactly as you say. You might even sense socio-political overtones as Max attempts to create order in his imagined kingdom while learning that you can't please everyone all the time. This is where the film deviates from the book where Max is a tyrant who imposes his rule over obedient and mostly mindless subjects. Here, the creatures have individual personalities and opinions. So in the film, Max faces the reality of making mistakes. He isn't so sure of himself, and his choices often lead him to deep regrets. I count this as a big plus, even though it may confuse young kids who are expecting a simple, digestible fairytale. Don't be surprised if your child comes out slightly confused, if not disturbed. (Note, there's a bit of violence... no blood, but a character or two might get slightly maimed).

I would categorize "Where the Wild Things Are" with other fairy tales for grownups, like "Willy Wonka" (as well as the recent remake "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory") and an obscure 70s gem with Gene Wilder "The Little Prince". This film is probably closer to the children's side than those others which were clearly skewed toward adults. That's probably where it lost a little punch in my opinion. But it's still a great flick that does a nice job honoring a classic book. By the way... wtf? Did I just use the word "socio-political" to describe a children's flick? I need to get out more :/