Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

"Inside all of us is a wild thing"

Director: Spike Jonze
Studio: Legendary Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Playtone
Genre: Fantasy
Country of Release: United States/United Kingdom
Year of Release: 2009

Where the Wild Things Are is a well known and well-received children's book that I'm sure many of you are familiar with. In 2009, this classic part of the childhood of many received a film adaption. This is another of those movies that I particularly am interested in due to personal experience/nostalgia.

The film is about an eight year old boy named Max with a particularly active imagination and a not so great relationship with his mother. After a particularly stirring argument, Max leaves home and finds a small boat that he sets out to sea in. He comes across a land where monsters called the Wild Things live and soon he begins a new life with the Wild Things as their friend and their king after he tells them one of the tall tales from his imagination.

The interesting thing about this movie is that even though its an adaption of a children's book, I'm not sure children will really get anything out of this movie. For one, much of the more is dark and contains several thoughtful yet darker notions about the nature of childhood that only an adult would pick-up on. The Wild Things themselves are rather depressing characters who live in a world that is as bland as it is beautiful. The film isn't particularly kinetic enough and not enough happens constantly on screen to retain the interest of those but the most patient and inquisitive of children. It is also perhaps too long for its own good at nearly two hours long, the movie does unfortunately start to drag and loses much of its magic as it goes on.

The Wild Things themselves are amazing detailed, their fur and eyes express enough minute details that they actually appear to be living beings despite being a delicate yet precise combination of puppetry, actors in costumes, animatronics, and CGI. The cinematography is breathtaking but as stated earlier, it is also bland and noticeably empty at several moments. The film was largely shot in various areas of Australia and the landscape scenes are nothing less than the cinematic equivalent of pure beauty. The film is complimented well by a remarkable score by Carter Burwell and a happy yet at the same time sort of morose soundtrack written and performed by Karen O of the band, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (who I absolutely love and think is an amazing vocalist). If there's ever any movie that I would describe as simply aesthetically pleasing and beauty incarnate, this may very well be it.

Despite all of these being things that I have to praise endlessly about the film, the film does have its own shortcomings. The most major is that despite how astonishing I found the details that went into the film, the script seemed a bit empty and devoid of much feeling to me. The movie is visually and aurally gorgeous but the writing of the film came across to me as lacking a lot of the heart that I particularly hoped it would have. The mood of the film also jumps from dark, gloomy, and all around depressing to child-like euphoria back and forth so much that the film becomes an experiment in extreme mood whiplash and dissonance by the end of the film where it reaches its touching yet rather bittersweet in one sense ending. I realize this is a rather subjective criticism but I have found many reviewers tend to agree that these are the critical flaws in the movie that make it harder to rate higher.

Ultimately, Where the Wild Things Are is a movie that is hard to classify if its really a family film at all or a film for adults disheartened with the reality of adulthood and trying to remind us of both the splendor and selfishness of childhood. Its hard to decide if the film really appeals to a wide enough spectrum of any demographics because of its constant change in tone. Still, as I cannot say enough, a beautiful and respectable adaption of a much-beloved part of mine and many others childhoods.

Rating: 7.5/10