General Interest Review 00005

Where The Wild Things Are (film)

Where The Wild Things Are (film) is the cinematic expansion of Maurice Sendak's 1960s children's book. The book has all of ten lines, a score of pages and a fairly simple plot. Kids throws tantrum. Kid gets punished. Kid entertains himself while in room being punished. Kid's punishment ends.

The movie winds that bare chicken bone of a plot around a Max who has to shoulder more than he can bare at his age. His mother is single and sort of ignores him, and his sister's friends pick on him without her stepping in to call them bullies. Max gets all bent out of shape one night and runs away from home, at which point his imagination takes him to the titular locale. Instead of conquering the wild things like he does in the book, he lies to them and gets appointed king. From that point, the movie divorces itself from the book completely, spinning an allegorical yarn about human interaction, being sort of a loner, the selfish tendencies of interpersonal behavior and their effects on others, building sweet forts, and sleeping together in a big, furry pile.

The web of relationships Max conjures up for the wild things in his head points to his own life at with a temperamental alpha at the center capable of bringing his buds to his knees when he decides he wants to be upset. But along for the ride are a host of other teetering personalities that points this movie's genre away from the kid set.

Which makes for an interesting time in itself. On a base reading of the plot, we'd see Max represented in the alpha character, making sense of a situation where he has to temper personalities beyond his control, learning the lessons of it, and going home. But on a broader level the plot arc is really about relationships at any age. When do we let our own interest and selfishness fall away and heed the appeal of the better side of our conscience to let people be what they are? When is it time to call a spade a spade and think you can make things right and when is it time to just go home? Obviously there are no clear cut answers to this in life, and the movie treads lightly on making a concrete statement about how to deal with a screwed up entanglement of people. But watching the plot unfold through the McSweeney's-era archetypes will at least call to mind enough real life situations to keep things relevant.

And the cinematography and costumes are boss.