•

Film Reviews

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

By • Oct 14th, 2009 •

Share This:

Angry boy runs away and names himself king of big, violent muppets. He never once misses his frantic mother. Back home, he gets rewarded with cake.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is based on a beloved children’s book that has been called a classic? I’m appalled! It celebrates bad behavior by kids, violence, destroying trees, and lying. That’s the short list of despicable things this movie celebrates.

And the boy, Max, runs away with no thought for his mother! He never misses her!

What kind of life lessons does this book teach children? I put the blame on the book, not the movie. Director Spike Jonze, who co-wrote the screenplay with too-productive novelist Dave Eggers, must have really loved this 10-sentence book having sought the film rights for years. Jonze and Eggers (I hated AWAY WE GO) did the best they could flushing out this anti-cinematic fairy tale.

The book’s author, Maurice Sendak, was most likely paid by the word (standard operating procedure in the book world). Sendak, I theorize, is a bitter, unhappy man who was adopted.

Do parents really love this book? Max shouts “Feed me, woman!” to his mother.

Thank God I never read this book to my son.

The meager story is this: Max (Max Records) is an unhappy, friendless boy. I kept wondering why. After having a violent argument with his hard-working, single mother (Catherine Keener), he runs away as his mother helplessly rushes after him. He takes a boat to a strange land where he meets violent puppets who destroy trees for fun. They start forest fires too!

The muppets are argumentative, quarrelsome though smiley, and pedestrian. They are leaderless and quickly accept Max’s proclamation that he is their Viking king. They now have someone to serve. Max gives them a task:: Build a huge fortress.

The only voice easily recognizable is James Gandolfini as Carol. Gandolfini left the brilliant “The Sopranos” for this? I do not know how much money he wanted (maybe he demanded sole ownership of HBO?) to continue his role as Tony Soprano, but I bet WILD THINGS paid him considerably less. (I did like his work in the remake of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3, but Gandolfini created an iconic character who was fat, powerful, and an amazing sex machine. He gave that up for supporting roles and voice work!)

Gandolfini’s voice, and all the other voices (Catherine O’Hara [wasn’t she brilliant in “Curb Your Enthusiasm”?], Forest Whitaker, Paul Dano, Chris Cooper, and Lauren Ambrose) are altered to seem human but oddly symphonic. It is distracting.

Max tries to build a family with the muppet-like Wild Things while forgetting all about his frantic mother. Since Max is not a leader but a destructive kid without a soul, he leaves muppetville and returns home. His mother is so grateful, she feeds him chocolate cake.

Is WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE too scary for children? No, it is not. However, it is too boring for children.

Read Roy Frumkes’ review of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

Tagged as:
Share This Article: Digg it | del.icio.us | Google | StumbleUpon | Technorati

Comments are closed.