October 26, 2009: Where the Wild Things Are
I started off this viewing on the wrong foot right from the start, somehow not having been able to find the time to re-read the source material, a 40-page picture book containing about 10 sentences of text. Wouldn’t you say that it’s kind of important to go in with that information fresh in my mind, considering that a major point of discussion about this film has been about how such a brief story could be expanded to feature length?
Where the Wild Things Are is a much-loved book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, published in 1963. It has been popular with children of all generations since then, and the buzz about this film adaptation was similar to what we saw for the Lord of the Rings films, classic books which were often considered to be “unfilmable”. I grew up with the book and I certainly recall liking it but don’t remember loving it. Upon revisiting the story, I can understand the subtext and how the story may appeal more to certain kids than others. I saw the film with my wife, who is one of the longtime fans of the book who loved it as a child.
So what is this story about, and does it expand to be a complete movie? Well, the core of the story concerns a young boy (Max) who, after acting up and being sent to his room, disappears into a fantasy land full of monsters and eventually becomes their king, only to eventually realize that he needs to return home, at which point he finds that his home life isn’t so bad as he had thought it was. The setup and the coda are interpreted from a mere few pages in the book to form a perfectly reasonable story beginning and conclusion. Where the meat of the film comes from, and where the bulk of the new material originates, is during the time Max spends in the land of the wild things. The creatures are expanded to speaking parts which represent different parts of Max’s psyche and his different emotions, which was done entirely through their facial expressions in the book.
I respect the approach taken here, but for me this really didn’t expand to feature length in an engaging way. I can certainly see how it would appeal to many fans of the book as an inventive reimagining of the story, but it turned out to be one of the times when I find myself wondering whether there would be a market for 60 or 70 minute films, permitting stories to be told which didn’t necessarily require filler to get up to the accepted minimum running time. Admittedly the film has been growing on me since I saw it, but I don’t find myself eager to watch it again. The choice to go with a live-action technique, with actors in big suits and CG only used for the wild things’ faces, is a good one, lending weight to the body language of the characters and their personalities to supplement the solid voice work by the likes of James Gandolfini, Chris Cooper and Paul Dano. This also permitted the cinematography to be deliberately bleak and muted, using natural light, in a way that’s impossible to achieve with animation without also looking stylized. The only major complaint I have about the visuals would be certain movements of the wild things, particularly the action of jumping, which looks worse than the worst wire-fighting scenes from martial arts movies of the past decade, despite the claims of one reviewer about the “balletic grace” with which the puppets moved.
I wouldn’t be doing my job as a moviegoer who is obsessed with Catherine Keener if I didn’t mention that she is excellent as always, although she doesn’t have much to do here. Spike Jonze directed Where the Wild Things Are, and he’s an excellent choice for this, having previously mastered the fantastical in Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, the former of which also co-starred Keener.
When we come right down to it, Where the Wild Things Are certainly did make me think, and provides excellent fodder for discussion. In considering my current reaction to the story compared with how I received the story as a child and how others may have seen it differently, I was forced to realize that I’m not even an authority on what I personally used to think as a kid, much less what anyone else thinks or thought. I guess I’m OK with that, and I do thank the movie for making me consider that.
Thoughtful adaptation of a children’s classic.
Post a Comment