Where The Wild Things Are (2009)

Directed by Spike Jonze Where the Wild Things Are tells the story of Max who after a rather distressing conflict with his mother runs away to a place where giant monsters live, and tries to help them find happiness.

It’s an intriguing film and if you read the book as a child or an adult you’ll most likely want to see it as soon as possible. It’s a simple story dealing with all the emotions and worry that some children (and even adults in this case) have to overcome and control. Max is that child and with the help of some rather surreal looking friends he realises his mistakes.

I was always interested to see how this story would play out on the big screen. Turning a 10 page (or so) story into a 100 minute long feature film isn’t an easy task but Spike Jonze managed to pull it off to some extent. Story wise it’s very similar to the book which isn’t very deep on first glance, but it’s an entire story of this single boy’s liberation via his imagination. He redeems himself once he realises he cannot help these creatures who are almost reflections of his own emotions.

For me though I was somewhat disappointed by it. Visually it was a feast for the eyes but I felt the movie’s issues of hardship and family bonds where a little to overpowering for its target audience, (which I gather are children.) It tries to deliver characters which reflect Max’s emotions but in fact they’re never explained in such a way where the audience is aware of this. I can see the direction in which Jonze was going for but the film comes off much like its lead, confused and muddled.

A good film none the less, it does have some visually stunning moments and wonderful shots followed by some amazing “wild things” but the film seems lost in what morals it’s trying to say. Oh and the violent hand-held camera work wasn’t needed for this.