Childhood is a lot of things. It's fun, sad, dark and wild — and "Where the Wild Things Are" exhibits every one of those qualities. The much-anticipated new film adaptation of the 1963 children's book by Maurice Sendak is about childhood, but it is not necessarily a children's movie. Director Spike Jonze brings the lens down to the level of one young boy — Max (Max Records) — without patronizing his story. Jonze instead respects Max's reality and all of the whirlwind emotions that come with it.
Sendak's 48-page classic had all of nine sentences, but Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers cull a rich and nuanced story from this foundation. They give Max an absent father, a disenchanted sister and a tired mother with a new boyfriend. The important people in Max's life seem distant and preoccupied, and that upsets him. The intricacy of his imagination seems directly proportional to the complexity of the real world.
Jonze does a good job of characterizing his protagonist from the start. In the yellowed light of a suburban snow day, Max stockpiles snowballs for an imaginary war. His room is filled with handcrafted ships and creatures. He builds impressive igloos and forts, and when he needs the courage to do something really bold, Max puts on his hooded wolf pajamas.
The first scenes appear to be the most mundane in the film, but they are some of the most poignant. Nearly wordless, a few quick vignettes neatly sum up what it is like to be a little kid. In these first minutes, Max experiences a whole spectrum of emotions full force. It is difficult for him to deal with sublime happiness, devastation, blind rage and remorse so quickly, and it's nearly as difficult for the audient to watch. But this intensity is a reminder of the harsh realities of childhood, when emotions are raw, unfiltered and surprising.
The world of the Wild Things, where Max escapes when he feels overwhelmed by reality, is stark and beautiful, its landscapes vastly impressive. It is full of extremes: a tumultuous black sea, dense woods, desert dunes, sea cliffs and rocky caverns. The nights are inky black, with enormous shadows creeping in at the edge of the firelight by which Max first introduces himself to the Wild Things. The days are bright, with images onscreen appearing nearly overexposed.
The Wild Things themselves are everything their name implies. They're big monsters, capable of brute strength and real violence. They fight each other and destroy things; they sleep when and where they want. Their emotions are just as raw as Max's, and developmentally, they seem like kids. Often it's hard to tell if the Wild Things are good or bad; at any moment, Max might anger the Wild Things and they could just eat him up. This uncertainty imbues the film with a constant buzz of excited anticipation.
The film's plot proceeds in fits and starts. Time is disjointed, but this becomes irrelevant because the story is more an exercise in emotional experience than a linear sequence of events. The plot becomes less about a progression of mornings and nights, and more about what Max does and how he handles new feelings.
Dialogue in the film is simplistic, sometimes to the point of being vague or confusing. Max delivers his lines with the sincerity of a real 9-year-old, sometimes breathlessly trying to get all of his ideas out at once, other times hesitantly "umm-ing" his way through explanations.
The story ultimately belongs to Max, and thus is told through his eyes. Events are explained insofar as Max would be able to explain them. The Wild Things are already in the midst of ongoing conflicts when Max arrives. They make him their king, but he is ruling over subjects whose politics he can barely comprehend. There are delicate issues between Wild Things Carol (James Gandolfini) and KW (Lauren Ambrose), as well as Judith (Catherine O'Hara) and Ira (Forest Whitaker), that seem to have been building for some time. Those issues are never fully explained, and the muddled plot is a little unnerving at first. But as an expression of Max's limitations of understanding and a commitment to keeping the film at his level, the enigmatic nature of tensions between characters works.
Ultimately, "Where the Wild Things Are" is about the experience of being a child. The film evokes deeply visceral reactions; it is powerfully sad and overwhelmingly exuberant. When viewers enter the roller coaster world of the Wild Things — and of Max Records — they'll find a childhood rumpus worth eating up: something at once bizarre, frightening and beautiful.
