Where the Wild Things Are - Spike Jonze's Film Finally Sees the Light of Day!

Director Jonze Brings His Vision of Maurice Sendak's Book to the Screen with His Vision Intact

Spike Jonze's take on Maurice Sendak's "Where The Wild Things Are" is one of the few movies I've seen in awhile that actually deals with real kids instead of these stereotypically spoiled movie kids who are way too pampered to our collective annoyance. So many family movies these days are watered down crap, mostly Disney releases, that aim to be as inoffensive as humanly possible. As a result, we find ourselves mocking what we see instead of relating to it. But here, we get a young boy who has quite a vivid imagination that he retreats to when the real world becomes too scary to deal with, and who comes from a broken family that is getting by the best they can. For once, we see kids treated as intelligent and capable of learning more than they knew, and it combines them with things that are real, imaginary, and (of course) wild.

The Max of the story is played by Max Records, and he gives one of the best performances that I have seen from a child actor. Seeing him build an igloo out of a snow pile or making a spaceship in his bedroom with his stuffed animals as willing passengers brought back some great memories from when I was a kid. But reality rears its ugly head every once in awhile as some kids thoughtlessly smash down his igloo, not thinking about what it meant to him. Then we see him in elementary school as his teacher explains how the sun will die one day. This is one of the funnier moments in the film in that the teacher just can't stop talking about all the different ways the planet will die off when the sun is no more. Granted, this won't happen for another billion years, but when you're a kid, things like this feel like they will occur tomorrow.