Revisiting Where The Wild Things Are

Had a second viewing today. Much more aware of the sadness and anger in the film, made me aware for the first time of how often I was angry as a child, the kind of things that made me angry and/or upset. Also more aware than before of just how great Max Records is in this film. His performance is just so natural it doesn’t even feel like a performance. Couple that with Jonze’s handheld-almost-verité visual style and you got a pretty goddamn awesome piece of cinema. Tempted to write a new review and boost it to 5/5, but not sure yet.

David

REVIEW: Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are (dir. Spike Jonze, 2009) ****

reviewed by David Sugarman

When rumours began to surface last year that all was not well between Warner Bros. and Spike Jonze, regarding his long-planned and highly-anticipated adaptation of a classic children’s book, I worried. It was reported that Jonze and his co-writer, Dave Eggers, had written a dark, subversive take on the story, and that the studio were demanding reshoots.

Thankfully, the film that has finally hit release here in the UK today is the film that Jonze wanted us all to see. Previously award-nominated for directing the Charlie Kaufman scripts Being John Malkovich and Adaptation., Jonze may on the surface seem an odd choice to direct a “family movie” like Where The Wild Things Are– but both Malkovich and Adaptation. reveal Jonzes innate grasp of magical realism and fantasy. And boy, does that pay off wonderfully in Wild Things.

Lonely child Max (Max Records) throws a tantrum, biting his stressed mother (Catherine Keener) and running out of the house into the dark, while his mother’s boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) watches lamely on. Max find himself in a strange world populated by the huge Jim Henson-created “Wild Things” of the title.

While the film is often piecemeal, and certain ideas are followed up vague blind paths or simply left unfulfilled entirely, I certainly left the cinema feeling there was more to it than I had been able to grasp from a single viewing. Young Max Records delivers a great performance, full of pathos; almost the opposite of Haley Joel Osment in A.I. Artificial Intelligence at the start of the decade, though equal in terms of adorable melancholy. However, whereas David in A.I. was a robot incapable of really understanding the emotions he has been programmed to feel, Max develops an intuition and a self-aware sadness. Visually the film is gorgeous, with wonderful photography by Lance Acord and the excellent Henson puppets giving a properly magical feel to the fantasy. The final touch is Karen O’s soundtrack, all ramshackle acoustics and a capella vocals.

I need to see this film again to do it full judgment, but initial impressions are overwhelmingly positive.