If you enjoyed the book, don't expect to find that same thing in the movie. I read a while ago that the author had written the book about dealing with divorce in the family, and to that end it truly stands up and keeps that issue alive in the story. But when dealing with a book that's twenty pages, and trying to turn it into a movie that's an hour and a half you start to run into a lot of problems with filling in the blanks.
Spike Jonze who directed this I think did a phenomenal job with writing it as well, and with keeping the feel of the story through out the film. At times though I felt mostly disturbed by what I was seeing (It's Spike Jonze, why am I surprised?) but for a kids story to be so bothersome makes me feel they took a wrong turn somewhere.
The story is simple, Max a young boy living in middle America is acting out because his parents are divorced, Mom's got money woes, his big sister is sort of a bitch, and Mom's back on the dating scene. After a rather funny confrontation with his Mom he runs away, takes a little sail boat and lands on the place where the wild things are. After lying to them about who he is they make him their king, and he promises he'll make it all better. One of the Wild things, named Carol (a boy) is upset that one of the other wild things named KW (a girl) has left their family and made new friends. This issue is tearing the rest of the family apart (hence the whole divorce thing) Well things get better, and they get worse and he eventually has to go home.
As we walked out of the theatre a friend of mine said there wasn't any resolution to either of the plots, his families or the wild things. I can't say I was surprised though, if the stories about divorce that's something that doesn't end, and something you deal with, at least on some level the rest of your life. So even though at the end of the movie he's better, he will never be able to reconcile the fact that his parents no longer love one another.
At times I found it to be inappropriately violent, in one such instance Carol is chasing Max because he's mad at him and is going to eat him, if you take that and view it through the spectrum of divorce, then here is the father figure chasing the child not to eat him of course but to beat him. At least that's how I viewed it. There is a very specific family dynamic amongst the wild things, a Mom, and Dad, ones that are more like the children, and when the father is upset that the mother left and chases the child for lying....seemed to me pretty obvious.
Also another thing that kind of bothered me was just how sad it was. It has its funny parts and its more up beat parts, but over all it was very depressing, as the kid tries to wrap his mind around the divorce, and how to deal with not having a father figure we see just how sad being a kid really is. It is, being a kid is a sad experience. People like to gloss over how fun it was, and it was, but there is so much sadness to, and this film is just over flowing with it.
Now for all my seeming complaints, I really did like it, plenty. The voice acting was great, I sat there most of the movie trying to figure out who was doing the voices because I had heard them before. The Jim Henson Company made the costumes for the wild things, and they did the faces with CG since the heads weighed to much with all the animatronics in it. So you can clearly see that the kid is there, standing next to these things and not standing alone talking to a tennis ball on a stick. The kid was great, I never got the feeling he was acting, they auditioned thousands of kids, so I would hope they would find the right one.
It was a really touching movie, and like I said before a little disturbing at times, but I think Spike Jonze did a very good job with it, if perhaps he took a few to many artistic licenses with it. I suppose though how upset could I get if the author saw it and said it was great, but then again, that book belongs to us now, not him...really. Its the property of any person who read it as a child and liked or loved it. Its not exactly what I would have done with the story, but was still thrilling.
There was way to much hand held camera shots, it was pissing me off, I don't get a headache from that, or nauseous, but when its over used to this point its just stupid. When you have a budget of 70 million use it, you have the equipment and toys to make it as fluid or as shaky as you want it, but not that shaky!
Overall it was great and everyone should check it out, but not necessarily in the theatre. 7/10 stars.
Director: Spike Jonze
Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forrest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Ruffalo
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