Where the Wild Things Are

By Jeff Niesel

First published in 1963, Maurice Sendak’s fabulous children’s book Where the Wild Things Are is much more playful and not as dark as this Spike Jonze adaptation. Jonze’s movie starts promisingly enough. Max (Max Records) feels like his mother (Catherine Keener) and sister (Pepita Emmerichs) don’t pay enough attention to him. This part of the movie really captures what it’s like for a child to be ignored by its family members. But when Max runs away and enters an alternate world, the film quickly starts to fall apart. The first creature he meets is the highly unstable Carol (voiced by James Gandolfino). Alternately gentle and violent, Carol has much in common with Max. Like Max, he just wants to be loved. And like Max, he strikes out at those who love him when they don’t love him back enough. But Max and Carol eventually bond and attempt to get the other creatures to become part of their surrogate family. There’s not much else to the story here and that’s the real problem. Co-written by Dave Eggers, the script doesn’t progress in any significant way.