Word: sendak
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Warner Bros., the studio behind Wild Things, had been plenty apprehensive about director Spike Jonze's ages-in-the-making version of the 1963 Maurice Sendak classic, which is essentially a kid-size retelling of the Tarzan or Sheena-style fable about a white person becoming the monarch of a remote land. This was no sure-shot, cuddly animated feature but a spikier live-action fantasy - essentially an art-house fairy tale - whose special effects were, as co-screenwriter Dave Eggers, marvels, "just people in big suits." Think of the beasties as members of the Snuffleupagus family, with a Catskills...
There are a few overlong scenes of island chaos, which don’t advance the plot, but these only add to the sense of harmless anarchy that Sendak evokes, and thus remain true to the book. These more trivial scenes are ultimately eclipsed by exceptionally poignant exchanges, in particular Max’s one-on-one conversations with Carol and KW. The audience realizes through these more personal scenes that very little separates these giant monsters from their young ruler...
What makes Sendak's book so compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper "still hot," balancing the seesaw of fear and comfort. In expanding the story, Jonze (with co-writer Dave Eggers) invents just enough of Max's home life to convey the forces behind his disobedience. The parents of 9-year-old Max (played by Max Records, whose name and performance suggest he was born for this role) have split...
This is a reasonable qualm, but as Max might say, "Now stop!" Jonze, chronicler of uncertain adulthood in Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, has done a masterly job of bringing Sendak's work to the screen. He has broken one Hollywood doctrine: the notion that children's cinema is best devised for miniature couch potatoes who require a steady stream of laughs, action sequences and references to flatulence. Even the best American children's movies, like those made by Pixar, embed their heartfelt messages in what are fundamentally entertainments. The mysterious emotional turmoil and, let's face it, weirdness that...
This is where Jonze unleashes his considerable creativity. The beasts are recognizable from Sendak's pages, but Jonze gives them names and distinct personalities that connect to aspects of Max's psyche and to the people he loves. (Freud would adore this movie.) They are vast, feathered, horned, clawed, beaked and definitely wild - irrational and dangerous, even when showing affection - and Jonze uses their threatening bulk as well as their capacity for cruelty to remind us that Max's taming of them is only temporary. For any child, it is near impossible to stay king of anything, even in fantasy...