Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Where the Wild Things Are has a great pedigree - based on a beloved children's book, written by McSweeney's founder and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius author Dave Eggers and directed by indie darling Spike Jonze (who also co-wrote the script). And yet it is a slow, flaccid mess of a film.

All of the technical work is solid - the puppetry is great, the soundtrack by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is beautiful, and the cinematography is top notch. The problem here is the screenplay. We begin with our young hero Max dealing with the problems of childhood. His divorced mother is spending more time with a new man than with him, his sister ignores him in favor of her friends, and to top it all off his sister's friends have destroyed his igloo, the one refuge he had from his problems. So he acts out in front of his mom and gets sent to his room. But instead of pouting there he runs away and hops onto a boat which takes him to a far-off island. So far, so good.

Then he gets to the island, and the trouble starts. The first scene on the island seems promising: one of the Wild Things (James Gandolfini's character) is destroying the other Wild Things' homes, and Max looks on from a hiding spot, somewhat scared. But Max soon reveals himself to the Wild Things and not only is he not particularly frightened of the Wild Things, but they are not particularly frightened of him. There is a brief moment of completely unconvincing menace from the Wild Things, but then Max tells them he is their king and they agree with him, and Max soon meets all the Wild Things.

This opening sequence on the island is completely and utterly mishandled. This should have been the time to portray the Wild Things as genuinely menacing creatures (as they seemed to me as a child reading the book). Showing only glimpses of them and having them do something scary and then almost discovering Max would have been a good approach to establish them as mystical, frightening beasts. After piquing the audience's interest and wonder, then you can show that they are actually more complicated and friendlier than they first seem, and the audience will appreciate this as a revelation. But the filmmakers' approach of making the audience and Max fear the Wild Things for about one minute and then deflating that fear by showing that the Wild Things are harmless is a complete waste of an opportunity and diminishes the audience's interest in the Wild Things.

Along these lines, it was a horrifically awful idea to have us meet every single Wild Thing in the first five minutes (except KW, who I'll get to in a bit). Have Jonze and Eggers ever seen a little movie called The Wizard of Oz? It is a good idea when you are meeting fantastical creatures in far-off lands to introduce them individually, at separate times. Not only does this make you remember each character better and give each a touch of specialness (like many reviewers, I couldn't tell the Wild Things apart), but each introduction of a new character becomes a plot point on our hero's journey. It would be one thing to meet a few Wild Things and then meet some more later, but literally we meet every single Wild Thing except one in this first five minutes.

And what a miserable crew of characters these Wild Things are. After one fun sequence in which the Wild Things and Max run around and play in a well-edited kinetic montage (the "Wild Rumpus" as you'll recall from the book), it's straight to the doldrums. They are named Wild Things, and yet there is nothing Wild about them at all, except for the occasional fit thrown by Gandolfini. Mostly these creatures just complain about how depressed they are and have minor squabbles and bickering, with the instigator of the argument ultimately apologizing for hurting anyone's feelings. Repeat. The supposedly more strong-willed KW is in fact nearly as much of a crybaby as these other Wild Things. Basically the Wild Things are 10-foot tall, furry, insufferable emo-hipsters. No one ever has any serious conflicts because everyone is so weak-willed that they back down at the first hint of argument, there are no enemies because no one can pass any truly harsh judgment, and no one feels any emotions other than ennui and depression- sounds like a Bushwick house party. And similarly no one does anything, except for one plot about building a fort that completely fizzles out.

The movie drifts along aimlessly, without a goal in sight or an enemy to vanquish, until Gandolfini decides that King Max hasn't delivered on his promises and throws a somewhat violent fit that includes ripping off a Wild Thing's arm. Even a character getting his arm ripped off doesn't generate a conflict by the way ("No worries dude, I'm sure it was an accident")! Then there is an actual tense moment where Max has to hide in KW's stomach because Gandolfini is on the war path. But of course, these characters all being complete pussies at heart, Gandolfini calms down and decides he shouldn't have gotten so mad at Max and actually likes him. Wow, that's quite a climactic scene there Jonze and Eggers...

Now Max goes back home, the Wild Things are still sad, and Max's mom hugs him and makes him some chicken soup. The End. And the lesson learned was??? Max basically played with some depressed toys, then got tired of them and went home, where his mom forgave him for his outburst for no reason.

Now WTWTA's defenders will say, "The Wild Things represent Max's tumultuous emotions and after playing with them, all of which actually goes on in his head, he goes home and can be a normal well-behaved boy again." Well this was the message of the book, but the movie has changed the Wild Things in an important and wrong-headed way. In the book, the Wild Things are genuinely scary right when we meet them ("they gnashed their terrible teeth and roared their terrible roars," etc.) whereas in the movie we are never scared of them. Then in both book and film Max becomes their king and has a Wild Rumpus with them. Then Max decides to leave and in both book and film the Wild Things say "please don't go," but then in the book the Wild Things again are frightening and menacing when Max decides to leave anyway ("they gnashed their terrible teeth," etc.).

Thus in the book, the Wild Things represented the strong emotions of anger and hatred that Max feels toward his mother, and the Wild Things remained angry and hateful as Max was leaving the island having conquered them. In the film, the Wild Things are never angry or hateful. Instead, they are depressed and filled with ennui, at one point existentially contemplating the death of the sun. So this is a movie about a kid trying to deal with depression and ennui? How many kids do you know with existentialist dread? And Max himself in the film is like the book version of Max, a rambunctious brat, not a depressed ruminator (though there is one incongruous scene where he learns about the aforementioned death of the sun in science class). This is very much the man-children Jonze and Eggers projecting their current feelings as 40 yr olds onto children. They could have at least made Max have more ennui/depression in the beginning or made clearer the transformation he was undergoing on the island to defeat those feelings, but even that would not have saved this film because it is simply insufferable to watch the middle section on the island where six depressive characters do absolutely nothing.

So why is this film getting such good reviews? Because the Wild Things remind the 40 year old critics of themselves and their social circle - depressed pussies. In all fairness I probably fall in that category too, but I go to the movies to avoid that side of my personality not to celebrate it!