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Where the Wild Things Are movie review: not for kids
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Ten year olds crying. Four year olds laughing nervously as play turns into rage. Children asking, "why is everyone so mean". Where the Wild Things Are movie is NOT a movie for pre-adolescents, and especially not for young children.
The Where the Wild Things Are movie is very different from Where the Wild Things Are children's book. The children's book validates authentic childhood emotions and gives children a safe place to release "wild" feelings before coming "home" to love and family. The families in the Where the Wild Things Are movie, both real and wild, are not safe - they are hurtful, mean and inattentive. The movie specifically describes families as "a lot of work" but, given the way family is portrayed in the movie, why bother. Max knows the value of a mother's love. He tells the wild things they need a mother - yet his own mother is so overjoyed at his return that she falls asleep sitting at the table with him. Say it ain't so!
The movie trailer claims "inside all of us...is...Fear...Adventure...A wild thing...". That is the beauty and truth of the original book. But Maurice Sendak's book gives children one other essential emotion missing in the movie - HOPE. As Dr. Timothy Leistner, South Florida education professor and artist, notes when teaching children's literature classes, "Hope is the ingredient that distinguishes children's literature from adult literature".
The movie previews suggest a playful spirit and engaging childhood bonds:
The movie, however, is a study in childhood loneliness. Max is ignored by a sadly stereotypical single mother and feels betrayed by an older sister who ignores his needs to join her friends - a reasonable plot point if the wild things offered any comfort. They don't. The wild things are not innocent and child-like; they are sad, whiny adults who never grew up looking for a child-king to make THEM feel better.
The playful rumpus comes with a high price - wounded creatures and lost limbs. The wild things just seem to accept that life hurts. They resign themselves to the sad reality that no one can really take care of anyone else. Hopelessness and resignation are the themes of this dark movie.
Isolated moments of magic, love and beauty are destroyed in fits of rage and sadness - keepsakes, homes, and even Carol's carefully created "dream" village. Max is never really safe from his own emotions or from the emotions of others. Everyone's actions are ineffectual and misguided: Max's family fails to care or comfort; Max fails at being king of the wild things (Carol insinuates to Max, "you're not a king...you're nothing"); Carol stands by helplessly as Max leaves in his boat for home; Max's mother falls asleep at the table in the final scene.
Where the Wild Things Are howls with deep existential pain. It's not for children.
For more information: After seeing this movie, I pulled an earlier Examiner article on "Celebrate Where the Wild Things Are movie with a Wild Things Party". The Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack is still great music. The Scholastic Cook-a-Book recipes are a wonderful compliment to the book. And you may still want an inexpensive Max costume for Halloween.
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