Close call
‘Where the Wild Things Are’
Director: Spike Jonze
Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini
Grade: C+
Maurice Sendak’s sublime distillation of childhood fears and wonderment is so beloved and revered, that even the most accomplished, visually virtuosic filmmaker would cower at the very notion of adapting ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ for the screen. The director, Spike Jonze, surely recognized the gravity of his task, as he compounds from a rich, though short, text in his most conservative film yet.
The result is a poetic fantasy ignorant of its medium.
Rambunctious but winsome, Max (Max Records) is introduced in a fittingly chaotic opening scene where he chases his pooch down a flight of stairs, howling and grunting like the titular beasts he will soon encounter. His temper soon overwhelms his better instincts, though, as a series of tumultuous run-ins with his sister (Pepita Emmerichs) and mother (Catherine Keener) lead him to be sent to bed without dinner.
Before he can be quarantined, however, Max escapes to his flimsy rowboat on the nearby river, sailing to wherever the winds elect to guide him. The island on which Max docks is populated not by humans or animals but a raucous, initially frightening band of monsters, variously defined by jagged teeth and baneful horns.
When he first comes face to face with the creatures, Carol (James Gandolfini), the most commanding of the lot, is ferociously burning and wrecking the wild things’ huts, a rebellious act that Max is all too eager to join in on. His audacity and valor immediately impress the beasts, leading them to crown him king. Ruling comes naturally to Max, but the wild things prove to be as testy as the boy himself.
The wild things all have their own insecurities. Judith (Catherine O’Hara), the ugliest of the bunch, constantly challenges Max’s authority while her partner, Ira (Forest Whitaker), stands solemnly by her side. Goat-like Alexander (Paul Dano) has a debilitating inferiority complex, Douglas (Chris Cooper), the wisest of the wild things, is virtually ignored and KW (Lauren Ambrose) struggles with her motherly instincts toward Max. Immediately untamable and fun loving, the wild things mirror Max’s approach to the world, but the union is not eternal.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the picture is the melding of minds behind it: Dave Eggers, one of the most acclaimed novelists of his generation accompanied Academy Award-nominatee Jonze (‘Being John Malkovich’) in writing the script.
Consistently hailed as one of the preeminent visual artists of this era, Jonze not only fails to honor a terrific script but also proves why the book was for so long considered to be unfilmable. Much of the visual brilliance of the book relies on the mythic scale of the wild things that tower above the trees, obscure the moon from sight and leave little space left on the page.
In the film, the wild things may still be two to three times larger than Max, but compared to the book they appear flimsy and oafish. There is no way to condense the forest, desert and beaches around them to make them seem more imperial within a film. Amid a real forest, the wild things become insignificant, dwarfed by natural environments and victims of the inherently grander scope of the cinema. These creatures were meant for the printed page, not a megaplex.
Jonze admirably communicates Max’s sobering realizations concerning the harsh realities of growing up. The relationship between Max and Carol is especially affecting. The latter’s influence on the fatherless child is evident in each of their interactions, but Jonze simply does not bear Sendak’s considerable empathy.
He is a primarily visual filmmaker whose tender depictions of dramatic events come off as slightly insincere. The picture exerts a nearly overwhelming flow of sadness and longing, most of which dissolves prematurely in scenes that last absurdly long.
For all his faults, Spike Jonze was still undoubtedly the filmmaker best suited to the picture, and his effort is not unaccomplished. He gleans from young Max Records an exceptional performance and exudes genuine admiration for Sendak’s work. The magic that defines the book certainly exists in the film but is never truly released, which forces one to reconsider the conflict that has, and always will, exist between the printed word and immortalized image.
Published on October 21, 2009 at 12:00 pm
