Where the Wild Things Are

It just makes sense that Spike Jonze, whose imagination is seemingly limitless and who always manages to bring a sense of off-kilter joy to his films, would be the perfect director to adapt Maurice Sendak’s beloved children's book, Where the Wild Things Are.

In the opening scenes, we meet Max (iconically adorable Max Records), a little boy who wears a wolf suit and runs around his house like a “wild thing.” In Sendak’s book, it’s not completely clear why Max is being naughty—he’s just being a kid—but in this film's bold reimagining, Max’s father has died, his older sister ignores him, and his stressed-out mother (Catherine Keener) has started dating a new guy (Mark Ruffalo). Max has all these feelings—anger, loneliness, uncertainty—and, of course, the boundless physical energy of an 8-year-old.

Jonze uses a hand-held camera, always from Max’s perspective, as Max flies through the house, builds a fort in the snow, starts a snowball fight—pow! When he is lying under a desk while his mom tries to work, we see his mother’s legs, plus the legs of the desk and chair—and it’s all so evocative. Who among us doesn’t remember life from that sneaky vantage—the safety of mom’s legs, plus the largeness, the sheer unknowableness, of the giant world?

In the book, Max is banished to his room where he imagines the island populated by Sendak’s fearsome and lovable wild creatures. In the movie, he escapes into the night and takes a boat.

The book and the movie are about the same thing: A child’s need to gain control over a sometimes overwhelming world. In both cases, Max thinks he wants power—and he does, a little—but he also wants the stability and constancy of his mother’s love. But in the book, which is a mere 9 sentences longs, the Wild Things have very little to say or do. At first they want to eat Max, then they want to make him their king, and then they decide they might want to eat him again.

In the movie, however, the Wild Things are sort of like a tribe of overgrown, motherless children. Without a mother-figure, they are rootless and depressed. There’s the burly Carol (James Gandolfini, menacing and endearing, as only James Gandolfini can be), who pines away for KW (Lauren Ambrose) and sabotages his own desire for a family. There’s the squabbling couple Judith (Catherine O’Hara) and Ira (Forest Whitaker). Plus, Carol’s loyal right-hand bird Douglas (Chris Cooper) and the goat-like misfit Alexander (Paul Dano). They accept Max as their king because he promises to make the sadness go away.

Jonze has created a most incredible world—he uses people in animal suits enhanced by CGI—and the results are like nothing you’ve seen before. Something about tiny Max’s presence among these giant tactile creatures—Carol often has a bit of snot caked up in his furry nose; Ira licks Max with a long, slippery tongue—set against the rough, naturalistic backdrop (the film was shot in Australia) is uncanny and poetical. (The ecstatic indie-folk soundtrack, by Karen O of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, is perfection). In one scene, Max sleeps among the creatures in a cocoon-like pile. In another scene, Max rides on Carol’s horns and surveys the world of which he is now king. There is more than one “wild rumpus” as well as the building of an awesome fort. Eventually, Max realizes that he misses his mother and wants to go home.

Where the Wild Things Are is not without its flaws—the story is somewhat desultory and we never really believe that these world-weary characters are projections of Max’s imagination—but it’s a work of genius all the same. You’re still absorbing Jonze's and Sendak’s wondrous world when the film, sadly, comes to an end.