First, you’re going to need to throw out the PG rating.I definitely would not recommend this film for younger children.
Second, as director Spike Jonze (“Being John Malkovich”, “Adaptation”) was quoted saying in many interviews, “”The main goal wasn’t to make a children’s movie. I wanted to make a movie about childhood.” In that way “Where the Wild Things Are” does nothing but succeed.
Based on the 1963 book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, the film is about a young boy Max (Max Records) who is butting heads with his divorced mother (Catherine Keener) and acting out in wild and inappropriate ways.
Dressed as a wolf and acting much the same as a cub, Max soon finds himself running, sailing and landing on a far off land, playing with a pack of Wild Things.
Records completely commands his first starring role, really settling into the wolves pajamas and Keener is as well cast as ever as a loving mother on her last nerve.
“Where the Wild Things Are” gets a superb boost from those actors tapped to bring the “monsters” to life: James Gandolfini (The Sopranos,) Paul Dano (“There Will Be Blood,”) Chris Cooper (Conklin, the man sending agents to kill Jason Borne in The Borne Identity,) Catherine O’Hara (any recent Christopher Guest movie) and Forest Whitaker (“The Last King of Scotland”, “Vantage Point”) all combine with the puppetry and CGI (which was modeled after recordings of the actors as they spoke) to make the project that much more rich.
As for the creatures themselves, Gandolfini brings not only love and compassion but also a stark element of terror to his character Carol’s emotional and temperamental actions.
Dano voices the meek and unsure ram creature Alexander, while O’Hara positively sings (and in one scene, not well) as the consummate “downer” Judith and Whiticare provides personality for Ira, the troll like partner of Judith and is the one responsible for “.putting the holes in the trees.”
Their words and the subsequent delivery of them is presented through the imagination of the child that created them, making for child-like sentiments and sentences, but also adult responsibilities for this boy dressed as a wolf attempting to be their king.
The actors put in a superb effort to bring the script to life, blown up from just the 9 to 10 sentences (depending on who you consult) comprising Sendek’s work in the original, to confront the theme as he stated in a 1981 interview of “.how children master various feelings – danger, boredom, fear, frustration, jealousy – and manage to come to grips with the realities of their lives.”
Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers’ hard work and thought on the script shows as the movie builds with Max’s continued exposure to his dream world and the creatures that fill it, until it is clear that he is not the master of the domain, but rather one being that must dwell and cope with each and every element within it.
Visually, the movie is both stunning and different from its printed counterpart, using an earthy pallet of color and different locations other than the jungle to illustrate Max’s journey.
The creatures over which Max presides look downright incredible on the screen, a combination of effects used to make their interactions with Max all the more real. Sets, locations, the music of Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Karen O” and nine-foot tall puppets all combine to give the film a look of an autumn adventure through a child’s eyes.
Kory Dench can be reached at KD608724@wcupa.edu