Sam Saw: Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is an interesting film to write about. It's not often that I find my perceptions of a film as off as they were with Where the Wild Things Are. Maybe that's the fault of the marketing campaign which went on for what seems like over a year and a half and for the last four months promoted the movie primarily as a children's film. I can't say I was entirely unwarned though, as the original adds hinted at some of the film's gloomier elements. Whatever the real reasons are...I found myself completely shocked as I walked out of the theater, having just seen a modern treatise on adolescent depression, when I expected to be watching something more like Wall-E...


The one thing I was expecting, that the film undoubtedly delivers on, is that the film is visually stunning. The monsters, which are combination of costumes and CGI faces, are both expressive and detailed. The sets on the island look amazing and are in many ways more fantastic and intricate than those of the book. I often found myself staring at the background instead of the characters because the scenery was so captivating. The actual meat of the movie, on the other hand, does not fair nearly as well as the window dressings.



I won't summarize the plot for those of you who haven't seen it yet, but I will talk about the overall themes....or theme for that matter. This is a coming of age film about an adolescent boy dealing with all the typical problems a 10 year old can find themselves dealing with: older siblings, trouble fitting in, struggles with the transition from childhood to the teen years, divorced parents; these issues are really what the movie is about. Max runs away from home after seeing his Mom kissing her boyfriend and ends up at an Island where the Wild Things are. The majority of the movie takes place on the island, and I had assumed that the time on the island would be about Max running around with all the Wild Things (and there is a little bit of that), but in truth the real point of the island is Max's self reflection about his current situation at home.

Each of the monsters seems to represent an aspect of him or his life, and seeing as he is pretty sad at home, so are most of them. That being the case, Max's whole time on the island is devoted to trying to help these depressed monsters deal with their problems. Oddly enough for a Children's movie, Max ends up leaving when he realizes he can't fix anything for the monsters, and in many ways they are more depressed and in a worse situation then when he arrived. It is almost as if Max realizes that he can't fix any of the "mosters'/his" problems and so he just leaves them to go back to his life. It's almost as if Jonze is saying you can't fix your problems so just deal with them. That would be great if the middle portion where Max is dealing with all the sadness and misfortunes of the monsters wasn't so long. So, although there is an ending which seems to bring things to a more happy conclusion, the bulk of the film is really about sadness. I found the whole thing to be quite depressing and at the end I was happy that I didn't have to watch anymore.



I think the main problem is that Jonze mixes movie types that just don't mix. Fun children's movies, and coming-of-age-while-dealing-with-depression films, are oil and water. I honestly cannot imagine what it would be like to bring a child to see Where the Wild Things Are. I image you'd spend a lot of time trying to explain why the "big furry guys" are crying.

I don't want to finish review without stating that the film is well done. Jonze hits the nail on the head with all the problems Max is dealing with and he is a truly relatable character, but one has to beg the question of why would you want to spend a 100 minutes in a movie being reminded of all the things that made you sad as a child, and furthermore, would you really want to bring a kid? In general, the monsters are just a plot device for Max's self-realization and, to be honest, for the purposes of this film I could have done without them. At least that way it would feel like the the film was being honest about what it is. As it stands, it feels like Jonze wanted to make a movie about dealing with sadness and thought Where the Wild Things Are, and the fuzzy monsters that came with it, would sell more tickets. Where the Wild Things Are is just too serious for Children, and packaged in too Childish a box for Adults.

Grade: C