Where the Wild Things Are ***

In the opening scene of Where the Wild Things Are we see an animalistic little boy named Max (Max Records) chasing a dog down the stairs of his home. Max is brandishing a fork, and that doesn’t look safe for him or the dog. Why does he have that fork? Like all children, Max is aggressive and sensitive, emotional, defiant, adventurous, and above all imaginative. “I’ll Eat You Up!” he shouts at his mother before he bites her shoulder and bolts from the house, running until he finds a boat floating on the banks of his imagination.

The story is based on Maurice Sendak’s enormously popular 1963 children’s book. In the illustrations, Max is sent to his bedroom without supper and a forest grows right up in the middle of the room. For the movie, director Spike Jonze (his first film since 2002’s Adaptation) oddly omits this detail, missing an excellent opportunity to create a special effects sequence that would showcase one of the most iconic scenes in the book. However, when Max hops in the boat, crosses the sea, and then disembarks on foreign lands, the Wild Things are unmistakable. The creatures are a mixture of practical costumes and CGI, and the voice work is superb. It feels like those little drawings have truly come to life.

As in the book, Max declares himself King of the Wild Things. From there on, the movie extrapolates Sendak’s themes to craft a story of heightened emotions. All of the Wild Things are children at heart. They love adventure and fun; they love having a leader; they love each other. And like children, when things go wrong, they throw tantrums, they cry, and they get angry. The problem is their new king is a child as well. Carol (James Gandolfini) is the most prominent of the creatures and the one closest to Max, probably because they have the most in common. Carol too gets easily frustrated, though he would like nothing more than for everybody to just be happy and to be together.

As a parable of family life from the perspective of a child, the film speaks to the experience of childhood. Though it is relatively funny, especially when the Wild Things interact with each other, a lot of the movie may go over the heads of some children and be too scary for others. For those perceptive children, it will be a delight, and they may understand more than their parents give them credit for. After all, when Max hugs his mother upon his return, it is a shared experience. We’ve all been kids before, and some of us still are.