Will ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ Make You Cry?

Innovative director Spike Jonze collaborates with celebrated author Maurice Sendak to bring one of the most beloved books of all time to the big screen in Where the Wild Things Are, a classic story about childhood and the places we go to figure out the world we live in.

The film tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are. Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions.

The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. When Max is crowned king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought.

Some may find its dark tone and slender narrative off-putting, but Spike Jonze’s heartfelt adaptation of the classic children’s book is as beautiful as it is uncompromising. Not as easy or airbrushed as Potter, Ice Age, or Narnia then, but with its darkness, loneliness, and wonder, it might be the most honest kids’ film of the year.

The film excels in its high-class synthesis of real (Australian) landscapes, sophisticated costumes and computer-generated effects. The creatures, except for when they’re tumbling and flying through air, look exceedingly realistic: their fur is textured and multi-coloured; their teeth resemble battered promontories; their eyes are easily as expressive as those of Max and his mother.

Also impressive is Lance Accord’s hand-held camerawork and a raft of dreamily photographed grotto and beach sequences. in the best possible way, Jonze’s film also harnesses that contradiction: it feels like a grown-up story told by kids, where all of its emotional weight is buried in the story or otherwise ignored because nobody seems to know better than to emphasize it.

Bereft of nostalgia, much less a cinematic style that lends itself easily to conventional spectacle, Spike Jonze brings Where the Wild Things Are to life in a way that no one could have possibly expected, but thankfully in one better than they could have ever imagined. There’s a landscape here that doesn’t just presage his physical experiences with the Wild Things, but demonstrates the depths of Max’s emotional range – the breadth of which is certainly symptomatic of all kids, but something seldom explored in films about them.

The reason this kaleidoscope of reactions is so important, so vital to the film’s success, is because each of these individual feelings finds its physical representation later in the story, giving Max a unique and unexpected opportunity to look outside himself and see not only how he really feels, but how those feelings impact the others around him.

Know more about the Where The Wild Things Are movie plot & characters, Follow Where The Wild Things Are on Twitter to find out more.