We first meet Max (Max Records) as he violently roughhouses his dog. Is he playing? Is he always this violent? Are we supposed to connect with this character? The answer to all these questions is yes. Where The Wild Things Are starts with all the momentum of a sled speeding down a massive hill. Max plays in the snow with a joyous youthful exuberance. He runs wild in snowy streets; he builds an igloo and provokes a fight against the friends of his older sister (Pepita Emmerichs). There is no wasted second for Max. He must cram in every element of play as if there is simply no time to just stop and appreciate his surroundings. After provoking a snowball fight he is charged by adolescents. Max smiles one last time before retreating into his igloo. He giggles out of impish pride before being crushed alive as one of the teenagers jumps on top of his igloo. He emerges crying. His tormentor leaves without so much as a glimpse back. Max nearly died. No one cares. As Max retreats into his home he is consumed by uncontrollable rage. He destroys his sister’s room in a violent and vengeful frenzy. She ignored him; she must be punished.
This is by no means a movie for children. Max exists alone in a tumultuous world. There are no other children. He exists as a lonely entity without so much as a friend besides his mother (Catherine Keener). Even she seems to grow tired of him after he attacks her while she’s sipping wine with an innocent suitor (Mark Ruffalo). Max runs down the stairs in his ruffian monster costume, attacks his mother and bites her as she tries to pick him up. She brings him into the kitchen, whereupon he roars, “Woman, feed me!”
Frustrated with those whom are deservingly angry with him, Max runs away. He sails to a fantasy world, intended as an escape from the complex people of reality. Unfortunately, the creatures that inhabit this new world become allegories for all the impenetrable people that inhabit the real world. Max models them in his own image; unfortunately that means they are equally rage filled and bipolar. The most important of these creatures is Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini). He has the same wants, needs, and fears as Max. We watch Carol pine over the loss of KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose) with the same alternating dejection and wrath that Max has over the growing rift between him and his sister. Max empathizes with Carol and inspires him to rediscover his own spirit of play. As they grow closer and closer, Max grows to appreciate his natural talents more and more. As Carol opens up to Max, the two explore their own insecurities with the general transience of childhood. Carol is Max’s imaginary friend, created to have everything Max loves about himself. Carol is Max’s projected feelings, and in their interactions Max gains a unique perspective on himself.
As the wild things play a game at Max’s suggestion, they begin hurling “dirt clods” at one another. The inevitable conclusion brings to mind a common phrase heard by most children Max’s age: it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. The game culminates in Douglas the giant bird (voiced by Chris Cooper) having his arm ripped off by Carol. In this Chaotic proliferation, Max finally embraces the consequences of unbridled mayhem. He finally understands that he is simply too free and too angry. He is ungrateful, and he is in essence a spoiled child. His sudden revelations create a natural divide between him and Carol, and Carol reacts as old Max would: he gets angry. As Max flees the horrors that are himself, he longs for his old life. He is capable of appreciating it now. Eventually we see these same maturations in Carol, but they are still in the style of old Max: he roars, then he cries. There is nothing in between.
It’s very common for something to be lost when a music video director attempts to direct a feature. David Fincher’s first feature after directing Madonna is the incoherent mess that is Alien3. Michel Gondry’s first feature after directing Björk was the sputtering Human Nature. Some directors making the transition forget about character development (i.e. Tarsem Singh’s The Fall). Others forget that they need occasional breaks in action (i.e. Michael Bay’s Bad Boys, The Rock, Armegeddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II, The Island, Transformers, Transformer 2). Where The Wild Things Are feels far too much like one of Jonze’s music videos. Although visually stunning, it doesn’t allow viewers any time to stop and appreciate the visuals. Oddly enough, Jonze’s first two films (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation.) are all-around great movies, but it’s beginning to seem that credit is entirely owed to their screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman. In Where The Wild Things Are, Max doesn’t give so much as a second glance to any of the fantastical landscapes and structures surrounding him. This perspective leaves the audience to also ignore them as commonplace. Just as a music video must for lack of time adjust tone in a jarring shift, the movie approaches every emotional change with an uncomfortable abruptness. While sudden tone shifts are certainly effective when used once or twice, their frequency in this movie give it a manic quality that virtually eliminates any emotion that isn’t as severe as it is sudden. Both Max and his creatures cry and then roar, then fight, and then cry again. There is never a break; there is no appreciative moment where the creatures look at each other with a subtle smile. Each emotion is entirely explicit. Kaufman and Eggers should know better. Jonze’s Adaptation. emphasizes the subtle, unstated (and frustrating) love between brothers and Egger’s Away We Go shows a couple completely in love expressed entirely through casual conversation. The wild things never stop saying, “I love you” or “I hate you.” All the work made to create truly organic creatures is virtually destroyed by cardboard bipolar dialogue that would be more believably uttered by 6 year olds. Hopefully Jonze will eventually adapt to the unique demands feature films.
But maybe this is all deliberate. When the wild rumpus starts, the audience is swept into the free wheeling style of a contemporary Smirnoff commercial. Jonze captures the joyful cadences of roughhousing in his directing. This is probably his best skill as a director. He creates extreme emotions. Thinking about how most 10 year olds appreciate the world around them, it can be absolutely solely in these extreme emotions. They have very little patience, and little to no desire to stop and appreciate the beauty that is life. Is it the fault of the director that he so convincingly eliminates all pauses from life? Isn’t he really just perfectly emulating the frustrating un-appreciativeness of this particular ten-year-old child? Yes, it is irking to watch someone act with complete abandon, but if the perspective is true to the character, then is it truly at fault?
At heart, Where The Wild Things Are is a morality tale. It is about self-discovery and growing up. Reread Maurice Sendak’s book and you will discover that it and Jonze’s movie center around the same themes. By exploring these themes of family and youthful ferocity further, Jonze has created a movie that is too complicated for kids, but too juvenile in its revelations for adults.
- Paul Brinnel
