There's one in all of us.
Where the Wild Things Are is rather like a live action version of Pixar's Monsters Inc (directed by Pete Docter, 2001), with some insightful dramatic parts, some laugh out loud fun and funny parts, but also some parts that are quite dark in tone and rather scary for under 10s.
When the film came out I remember there was some doubt as to whether the presumed target audience (kids) would take to it. Checking Wikipedia, they have a quote from the director that 'his goal was "to make a movie about childhood" rather than to create a children's movie.' In a home viewing context, with most of the cast running around in big "silly" animatronic monster suits, I thought it would be touch and go as to whether my 10-year old son would suspend his disbelief, but he watched till the end, laughed quite a lot at times, said he enjoyed it and would give the film 4.5 out of 5 stars.
The initial setup introducing the 8-year old boy, Max (Max Records), is very insightful, showing things from his point of view, exploring how lonely life can be in the winter holidays for a kid in a modern single-parent family, with no friends evident nearby, no siblings to spend time with, and a mother busy with work or boyfriend. Max Records is very convincing as a normally imaginative boy pretty much left to his own devices, who sometimes puts on his wolf costume and goes a little wild and crazy, like jumping on the kitchen counter and howling. In the heat of the moment, he goes further than that here, does something that causes him to need to escape the home environment, to flee to the country of the Wild Things.
The way Max travels to the country of the Wild Things is different than in the book, where the voyage is clearly and artistically psychological in nature, but it still works pretty well. A key question is how the filmmakers are going to tackle the monsters themselves. At first glance, seeing the direction they'd taken, using costumes with big heads, and animatronic expressions, like the Jim Henson creatures, the casual viewer might well be apprehensive, but as the story progresses, the monsters turn out to work very well, in large part due to the strength of the storyline, and the strength of the characterisation. So that by the end, the fate of the Wild Things is quite moving, and by the very end of the film, it had even got a little dusty in there.
In the book, which is very short, whatever else they may be, the monsters are an expression of Max's psyche, an outlet for the wild, wicked side of his character. In this film version, the monsters are that too, but from the very outset, they clearly have lives of their own that apparently exist independently of Max. To my mind, the monsters go beyond representing Max's wild imaginings, and are in a way more his imagining of the sort of virtual extended social network, extended family or group of friends that he might appreciate. The group of monsters that Max happens upon reminded me most of a small commune of aged hippies or community of artists, who have their own long-standing issues, especially relationship issues.
Because one thing that Max seems to be missing, that could help during times like these when he's burnt up or used up relations with his closest relatives, his mother and sister, is a deficit or lack that Kurt Vonnegut highlighted in his book Slapstick! or Lonesome No More (1976), and that is extended family (and friends and neighbours). Many of us in the west, perhaps especially in the USA, live in small tight family groups, nuclear families. And that's just not enough, Vonnegut points out, for animals who until recently evolved in tribal societies with lots of adults to pick up the slack when nuclear relations go sour or when those people need a break.
- Rating: High matinee
- When seen: 16 Apr 2011
- Where seen: Home
- More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia
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Amendments: Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.
