Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. The advertising surrounding Spike Jonze’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE have really worked for me, setting up a distinct universe that is at once fresh and popping while nestling itself comfortably in my familiarity zone, thanks to the strict adherence to Maurice Sendak’s design of the Wild Things.
I know many people who have seen the movie over the last 4 weeks. Most of them were reduced to an emotional wreck, spouting hyperbole, and a few were calling bullshit on the movie. I find I’m fairly centerist in these situations, finding myself somewhere between the extremes on both sides.
However, here I am going to be one of the speaking-in-tongues, praise Jesus and pass the ammo zealots for his movie. Fair warning.
I didn’t just like this movie, I loved this movie, with it every step of the way. It really is incredible filmmaking. You know it’s good when it seems like Jonze didn’t have one doubt or troubled night. I’m sure that wasn’t the case, but the movie feels effortless to me.
Mark my words, for a certain group in this next generation WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE will be a seminal film. Let’s say for those born between 1999 and 2004 this film will be an eye-opener. Most kids won’t understand exactly why this film brings out real emotion in them when they first see it, but that’s brilliant. They’ll feel things they can’t really identify, but as they grow older they’ll see a whole other side to this movie.
The reason why this film will become a classic (either right away or rediscovered later, it’s always hard to tell) is because Jonze cast the perfect lead in Max Records and was able to direct him in a blisteringly honest performance. The sheer, unflinching honesty of the film is Jonze’s secret ingredient.
Max is a little terror here, acting out because he doesn’t know how to cope with his emotions. Without giving us speeches or flashbacks we gather that his father is gone, his mother is struggling and his sister is starting to spread her wings, choosing friends over family as she begins the process of leaving the nest. All that adds up to Max feeling neglected, knowing his world is changing and probably not for the better, but being powerless to do anything about it.
Well, powerless until he puts on his monster outfit and acts like a damn lunatic. He might not be getting the right kind of attention, but it’s better than just standing idly by as his world changes.
Be sure to watch the pre-Wild Things part of the movie very closely. There are visual, audio and thematic clues or foreshadowing that you’ll see repeated later in the movie as translated through Max’s brain. Think of it as a more cerebral Wizard of Oz.
In fact, that’s a good description of this movie. It shares a lot of Oz’s themes, especially when it comes to the lead’s self-taught life lessons, but then again Dorothy never attacked Toto because she was bored and in one of her moods.
But as messed up as Max gets it’s always within reason. Max is a little boy, a perfect example of childhood captured honestly (there’s that word again) and without the rose-tinted adult view of what childhood means to a matured brain. I have no idea how Jonze was able to find that sweet-spot of having incredibly complicated and adult themes and emotion while keeping the childlike wonder alive and unforced but he did.
The Wild Things are all pieces of Max’s id, representing different sides of his personality. There’s the withdrawn, gloomy Eeyore side of him, the nervous self-pitying side, the cynical side, the dumb, but kind side, the calm and sane side and then there’s Carol (voiced perfectly by James Gandolfini) who is his pure, unfiltered, unrestrained emotion.
In Max’s adventures with the Wild Things he indulges himself, but learns about the responsibility of being a leader, the head of a family unit and in doing so gains an insight into the chaos he’s bringing to his loving, but quickly becoming fed-up mother (a great, if too brief turn by Catherine Keener).
That’s some heady stuff for a kid’s movie, but I don’t want to give the impression that this is only a message movie. There’s enough wonder and awe at the amazing-looking Wild Things to keep this movie from feeling like homework.
I think where you’re seeing the split in audience reaction is in how Jonze structured the feature to follow Max’s path and not a set plot. There’s no big goal for Max as King of the Wild Things, no enemy to fight or yellow brick road to follow. It’s much more internal than that. The enemy is within, the part of every human that will hurt the ones they love no matter how much they try not to.
If it hasn’t been apparent by now, I love this movie. I’m one of the hyperbole spewing converted. I thought the movie was incredible when I left the theater and the more it sinks in the more I’m in love with it.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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