I saw Where The Wild Things Are (one of the movies on my anticipation list) yesterday, and I loved it.
Where The Wild Things Are, based on the beloved picturebook of the same title, by Maurice Sendak, tells the story of a young boy named Max who escapes from his home after getting in trouble with his mom, and takes a boat to a land full of huge monsters. He befriends said monsters, and becomes their king. Max is free to do whatever he wants as king, but soon realizes that it’s very difficult to keep everybody happy when you’re in charge. With this in mind, Max returns home.
A couple of things differ between the book and the movie, but the new adaption is startlingly loyal to the original story. The only things that were really changed were the fashion in which Max leaves his home, and the fact that all of the monsters were given unique personalities and stories. In the book, Max is sent to his room without supper after creating mischief in his house. His room transforms into a forest, and in this forest he finds the boat to take him to the land of wild things. The movie, however, takes a much more realistic (and frightening) approach, having Max run away from home after being yelled at by his mother. He makes his way into the woods near his house, where he finds the boat.
The movie’s approach is much more mature than that of the book, of course, and the same is true for many elements of the story. The original book, being a children’s book, doesn’t have enough pages to really explore the ideas of love and parenthood beyond Max simply smelling his dinner from the far off land, and being reminded of his parents’ love. The movie, on the other hand, draws many obvious parallels between the monsters and Max’s predicament with his mother. The monsters, in making Max their king, put him in the same position as his mother, and he soon understands how she must have felt when threw his tantrum.
The cinematography of the film was amazing. I think that if I had directed it, I would not change a single shot. The camera angles used inspired the audience to see from Max’s point of view, the point of view of a child, and imbued the movie with a sense of wonder. The scene in Max’s room, where the camera pans across details in his decorations, and the scene in Carol’s model room both particularly impressed me with their attention to detail.
The special effects in the movie were impressive, because the monsters themselves were (apart from their faces) actually people in costumes, not CGI. This meant that they were not entirely lifelike (for example, the way they jump is somewhat obviously wire-rigged, and their heads cannot turn independently of their bodies), but I think that for this movie, that definitely works. The monsters are, after all, figments of Max’s imagination, so it makes sense for them to be somewhat bizarre and unbelievable in appearance. At the same time, the faces were incredibly realistic. I was able to easily accept them as real creatures whenever they spoke or showed an emotion. The thin layer of fur on their noses, the eyes, the lips…I was seriously impressed. See below or the title image for examples.
My one complaint about the movie is the soundtrack. For the most part, the music was great, and fit the movie pretty well, but there were a couple of songs that were just distracting. For example, when Max runs away from home, the song in the background has a chorus of “animal! animal! animal!” which I felt detracted from the scene. This scene would otherwise be a very emotional one.
But apart from a couple of songs on the soundtrack, I really liked this movie. I was chuckling for a lot of it, and very close to tears a couple of times, too. I would recommend it to anybody who wants their childlike sense of wonder restored for a few hours.
