Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Director and co-writer Spike Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers (AWAY WE GO) have given birth to a type of film that defies conventional film criticism. To say you loved, like, were neutral on, or hated their adaptation of Maurice Sendak's WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE doesn't quite get the job done. No, this work demands a far purer emotional response and deep psychological self-examination to get to the heart of why this telling of this very simple story gets to the root of what we are as human beings. Jonze might be better at this than any director working today. He doesn't thrust cold, therapeutic analysis at us. With films like BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ADAPTATION, he takes us by the hand and guides us into the often-scary world inside our collective mind and shared experiences as both children and adults.
With WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, Jonze and Eggers acknowledge the very real and often totally overlooked (at least in movies) fact that children's minds work in an awesomely different way than the minds of adults. So often in films, kids are written simply as tiny adults--smarter and more in control of their thoughts and feelings than any kid I've ever met. I'm not saying there aren't smart children; there are. But no matter how intelligent a child may be, you can't accelerate maturity. Even a kid with a high IQ can have a temper tantrum. In fact, the odds are pretty great that they will. In Wild Things, Max (played by the gifted Max Records) may or may not be smart, but he is highly creative and has an imagination that may be so highly refined it might be a hindrance rather than an asset. Dressed in his wolf costume for dinner, he climbs on a counter and demands that his mother (Catherine Keener) "Feed me, woman!" in his most booming voice, her reaction is a mixture of anger and humiliation (her new boyfriend--Mark Ruffalo--is in the next room).
Max is a kid that resorts to low-level violence and destruction when he's angry. When his sister's friends accidentally hurt him during a snowball fight, his reaction is to trash her room. When mom attempts to calm him down, he bites her. Max is the product of a broken home. Attention is something he needs. When his mother is on the phone working to resolve a work issue, Max is at her feet tugging on her stockings in one of the sweetest moments in the film. But he's also an energetic boy, as the opening sequence shows us. He tears through the house, and Jonze somehow is able to keep up with him with his camera low to the ground like his playmate. The moment instantly helps us identify with Max by literally bringing us down to his level and seeing the world as he sees it. He seems to spend a great deal of time in tight quarters--forts, homemade igloos, under a pile of wild things, even hiding in one of their mouths at one point. The womb metaphor pretty much writes itself.
So by the time we get to the part of the story we're more familiar with, Jonze and Eggers have established a backstory for Max that casts him and the tale in an entirely new and wonderfully original light. Max isn't just imagining a place where these rumpusing creatures live; he's escaping to that faraway place, away from his furious mother. I was utterly unprepared for this portion of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. To simply sum up the wild things as different elements of Max's personality isn't exactly right. One, I think, is meant to represent his mother; another is his sister. Using language and visual cues from Max's life, this world of imagination is built from scraps of Max's real-life world, the scraps that would matter most to a child.
The character of Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) destroys things when he's hurt. When he feels abandoned by KW (Lauren Ambrose), he destroys just about everyone's huts, not unlike Max did with his sister's room. The filmmakers imply that the wild things are manifestations of Max's many stuffed animals; but their personalities are all by Max, who infuses these creatures with childlike thoughts and actions. Listen carefully to their conversations. They aren't about anything of substance, in the classic movie definition of the world. They are about building forts, digging, destroying, and sucking out the brains of anyone who doesn't belong. Max recognizes himself in several of the creatures. Judith (Catherine O'Hara is a skeptic and highly negative about anything people tell her she'll like. Chris Cooper's Douglas (with a bird-like body) is smart and thoughtful. Also on hand are Ira (Forest Whitaker), Alexander (Paul Dano) and the foreboding creature known only as The Bull.
Max's new kingdom is a place where the boy sees his own behavior and attitude reflected back at him, and he becomes ashamed at the way he treated his mother. When Carol behaves like a destructive brat, Max tells him "You're out of control"--the exact words his mother used about him when they were fighting. It's a great slap-in-the-face moment that I'll remember forever. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE isn't about these spectacularly realized giants of fur and feathers and horns. The wild thing in Jonze and Eggers' story is Max, and the film is about him retreating to a place where he learns regret for emotionally betraying his mother. And none of this would matter were it not for Max Records' utterly accurate portrayal. There's no acting going on here. This kid comes across as so genuine--as both a loving son and a little shit--that you can't help but be blown away. And what about the creatures? I could look at them for years. The costumes have weight and complexity to them. You can see the center of gravity shift when one of them runs. You can't get that with CGI, but even the faces that are done digitally are flawlessly executed. The expressiveness is undeniable. You will fall in love with these characters and cry when it's time to say good-bye to them. It's just that simple.
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is all sorts of glorious wonder in one sweeping package. That said, it was not a life-changing experience. For me, it was simply a life-affirming one. I'll somehow handle the disappointment. I've already said too much and spilled my guts more than I should have, but fuck it, this one is worth it. Just go see it, and bring with you all the baggage of your childhood, and prepare to have it partially exorcised if you're lucky. This is an incredibly moving and smart trip that I can't wait to watch repeatedly, and hear what others have to say about it. It's a little too soon for me to declare it the best film I've seen all year, but it's right up there.
-- Capone
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