Spike Jonze has brought us some unique film-going experiences in the last decade, including Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Now comes another fascinating entry in his filmography, Where the Wild Things Are, based on the childrens' book by Maurice Sendak. While it's not as bizarre as Malkovich, it still manages to find a strange tone all its own.
Max (Max Records) lives with his mom (Catherine Keener) and sister, Claire (Pepita Emmerichs). Max is a wild kid, chasing his dog, making growling noises, building an igloo in the snow, and starting a snowball fight with Claire's friends. When his mom brings home a boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo), he doesn't react too well to his presence. Max throws a tantrum and ends up biting his mother, then runs away from home, finds a boat, and sails away.
He ends up on an island inhabited by strange creatures, who at first want to eat him. But thanks to Max's storytelling abilities, he manages to convince them that he is a king and has special powers that allowed him to conquer Vikings. Soon after, he is proclaimed their king and becomes leader of their land. His orders of business are what any child Max's age might want. He orders a large fort to be built for all of them to stay in and later orders that a game of war be played between them. However, Max finds out that being a king is not as easy as all that.
This film becomes an interesting exploration into a child's imagination, for, of course, that's what Max experiences when he runs away from home. Everything in his world is the way he wants it to be. The creatures buy into his story of being a king pretty quickly and follow his orders. What's neat about Max's imagination are the little details that you might miss if you're not listening closely.
When Max first arrives, they continually call him king. Nobody bothers to ask Max what his name is, but eventually one of them refers to him by his given name, without being told what his name is. This is just another example of how Max has tuned his perfect world to his needs. Everyone would know who he is and want to be his friend.
This film could have easily fallen into complete chaos, especially when it came to how the creatures were created, but the special effects here are outstanding. They were apparently brought to life through a mixture of CG and puppetry, where actual actors would be wearing the large, furry suits. The CG was mainly for the faces of the creatures, used to give them their huge, glaring eyes, and wide mouths. It's so well done, that it's hard at some points to tell which method is being utilized.
However, that's not all that went into these creatures. Adding even more life to them are the fantastic cast of voice actors including James Gandolfini, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, and Lauren Ambrose. They give more than just life to these characters; they give them distinct personalities.
Max Records does a good job as well, with what is probably the hardest role in the film. He wants to run away from the real world, but he doesn't want to ruin the new world he has found. In an interesting parallel, Carol comes to represent Max. Carol is also wild and prone to tantrums. They both want to believe that their worlds can be better.
The major drawback of Jonze's film is that the plot seems over-simplified and stretched just a little bit, which is not at all surprising, seeing as how the book is quite short. This does not mean that the movie can't still be interesting. It is. It just ends up spending long amounts of time not doing much, yet it is done in a world that is visually enchanting.
Jonze has created a world in which even "wild things" can be full of personality and fun to be around. The film's main character is never forgotten, for he is the one who must slowly realize that he can't escape from the real world into his imagination so easily, not without reality knocking at the door. He comes to learn this lesson, but perhaps the days of the "wild rumpus" aren't over. Throughout his whole adventure, we never do see him take that wolf-suit off. 3/4 stars.
Still playing in about 145 theaters across the U.S.
Now playing in theaters: Brothers, Armored, Invictus, The Blind Side, Bad Lieutenant, Everybody's Fine, Ninja Assassin, Precious, An Education, The Road, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Planet 51, A Christmas Carol, 2012
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