It’s not easy being a kid, especially a nine year old. I have faint recollections of my nine year old self, but I do remember being frustrated. Be it in school, where I felt like my classmates were holding me back; be it in the playground, where I was falling prey to numerous less-than-savoury influences in the form of other school chums; or be it at home, where I felt my parents simply didn’t understand me – I was a frustrated nine year old. That frustration boiled over into downright anger at society, and after a few too many angry outbursts at home and teachers repeatedly informing my parents that I was having problems in class, I was shipped off to a boarding school for three years, where I was no longer the big smart guy. I was small, weak, just like everyone else – and it just pissed me off more. Looking back, I’m glad I went to the boarding school (though I’m simultaneously not glad, if you get my drift – it was a horrible place), as I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t. But watching Where the Wild Things Are brought back all these memories of the person I was – and it was then, walking the streets after the film and reflecting on my childhood, that it hit me; for me, at least, Where the Wild Things Are is the definitive film about what it means to be a kid. Spike Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers have taken a classic children’s book, one I loved back in the day, and crafted something universal; something honest; something true; something brilliant.
Max Records plays Max, a hyperactive, attention-seeking brat to any uneducated outsider – indeed, after the opening shots, wherein Max chases his family dog through his house with a fork, one may be biased against the boy and his wanton disregard for his safety and the safety of Poochie. However, the next scene, in which Max builds an igloo and starts a snowball fight with his sister’s friends, sets up what is a moving and painfully truthful portrait of a boy growing up in a world that’s changing its opinion of him too quickly for him to adjust. Jonze and Eggers present in frank detail exactly what it is to be in that awkward transition stage when the world wants us to grow up but we don’t know how, and Records is their immaculate vessel. He traverses so many emotional states it’s hard to know which is the ‘normal’ Max – but then, as he says at the end of the film, “I’m just Max.” Where the Wild Things Are is, boiled down to its very essence, a coming of age story, wherein our young hero learns the value of self and the value of family.
However, Where the Wild Things Are separates itself from lesser children’s films (Cars comes to mind) by not being a children’s film – it is, instead, a film about childhood, about parenthood, and about each group’s perception of the other. When Max bursts into the lives of the Wild Things with a memorable ‘house-smashing’ scene, he escapes being eaten by becoming their King – a paternal figure required to get rid of all the sadness from the island. But even though he rallies them around him for a short period of time, the group bonding over a shared figure to look up to, the cracks in the relationships of the Wild Things are too big to ignore, and Max soon finds himself in a reconciliatory role he can’t possibly hope to live up to. Jonze and Eggers aren’t heavy-handed about the dual message that this conveys, and it’s a triumph of the film that one can come away from it having learned something even if they aren’t a child like Max or a parent like Max’s mother. The film says to its adolescent audience that there’s a world out there that requires a maturity that they may not have yet, but that their parents do, and they should go easy on their mum and dad because of that; to its audience of parents and adults, it says emphatically that children shouldn’t be forced to grow up too early, and that kids aren’t impossible out of intent. These messages may seem obvious, but Jonze and Eggers know that they’re not obvious until the audience is told them, and its this elusiveness of the obvious that they use to their advantage in order to make the film’s overall thematic structure much more affecting and truthful.
Of course, none of this would matter if the actual film was bad. Thankfully, Jonze and Eggers have crafted a film that is truly remarkable in its refusal to be pigeonholed. Jonze’s idiosyncratic direction has always made the fantastical seem real palpable, from a portal into John Malkovich’s head to a mouse inside Kanye West’s gut, and the Wild Things and their environment are Jonze’s crowning triumph. With judicious use of computer-generated imagery and some absolutely stellar voice-acting, the Wild Things come to life with a simple, childish energy that makes their low points as devastating as their high points are joyous. They’re as real – perhaps even more real – than any person in the film, and Jonze, Eggers and the talented cast manage to create a realistic community of large children that are never two-dimensional or ingratiating to watch. Special mention must go to James Gandolfini, a man whose talents know no end and whose performance here as Carol is one of the most poignant, downright emotional performances of the year.
The island the Wild Things inhabit is the stuff of dreams, a combination of incompatible landscapes with giant dogs roaming the dunes and crevasses, trenches and hills dotting the horizon. It looks spectacular, almost as though Jonze were filming a nature documentary with his lens rather than a standard Hollywood film, and it’s hard to count how many times my breath was taken by the vistas. They mirror Max’s character perfectly and prove a perfect setting for the unconventional narrative – gone are Robert McKee’s introduction-conflict-resolution plotlines (as so mercilessly skewered in Jonze’s previous film, Adaptation) in favour of a more realistic, more human development of and resolution of the issues at the centre of childhood. Jonze and Eggers have the guts to not leave everything tied up in a neat bow, and they have the skill to pull it off without seeming cheap or as if they’ve run out of ideas.
Where the Wild Things Are is one of the finest films of a stellar year. A film more in tune with the mind of a child than any I’ve seen, Jonze and Eggers have created, between them, an aesthetic, narrative, and thematic masterpiece. And all from a sixteen page children’s book that consists mostly of a ‘Wild Rumpus’.
Where The Wild Things Are
Written by Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze
Based on the book by Maurice Sendak
Directed by Spike Jonze
With Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker and Mark Ruffalo