Review of Where the Wild Things Are

On October 16, 2009 we made a point to pre-purchase tickets for a matinee of Where the Wild Things Are directed by Spike Jonze. This movie was supposed to be an adaptation of one of my very favorite bedtime stories, but the truth is...I didn’t really like it. I’m four, I need action not existentialism. The movie was slow and Mom used a fancy word…what was it? A-ha! Depressing! Not sure what that means, but I’m with her.

I always pictured Max as a boy like myself. I don’t mean to get in trouble, but I’ve noted that when I am tired I tend to go a little crazy. I don’t have a wolf costume…I prefer ocelots myself, but I have worked myself into an imaginative frenzy and collapsed into a mega power nap. Like Max, I have awakened from my dream journey to find my mother has forgiven my spilling of milk and the nails that I placed in her walls. The Max of Maurice Sendak’s and I are very much alike and last time I checked, I was not a disturbed child in need of an intervention.

The monsters of the book are weird too be sure, but in a good way. In the movie, however, the notable monster with the striped top half was turned into a bipolar metaphor! Um…not sure what that means either…all I know is that one minute he was happy and the next he was trying to kill Max. Not “eat him up,” I mean KILL him! That was pretty disturbing for me; I haven’t felt like reading my book Where the Wild Things Are in weeks.

In the book, Max learns as all we four year olds eventually do (even though we still need to be reminded…often) that there is a time for pretend and a time to give our mother’s a break. Max chooses to leave the wild things for the love of his mother. He has caused them no harm and has had a good rumpus. In the movie Max seems to leave them worse off then they were when he arrived which was awful. And sad. And Max hurt them; he made them bleed…on purpose! Mom believes in spanking for that kind of offense. Though I would never keep throwing dirt clods at a Monster who was crying and bleeding. Never in one hundred million forty thirteen years!

The monsters looked really good, they were like real so I guess the movie had that going for it but I really thought it was unfair of Mr. Jonze to take MY story and make it so…inaccessible to me. I’m who it was written for afterall.