So the first question that popped into my mind when I heard about the film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are was, “Can they really make the Things look real enough?” And then I realized what a ridiculous question that was, because when it comes to the Things, what does ‘real’ even mean? A more pressing concern is that they have voices now, which can’t possibly match the different sounds that each person imagined them making when we were kids transfixed by Maurice Sendak’s classic story which, if I remember correctly, is something like ten sentences long.

I’m generally not a fan of filmmaker’s taking creative liberties with original material, especially when dealing with classics, so I was worried about how much they were going to have to add to the story to make it into a feature film, but director Spike Jonze captures the perfect mood and atmosphere of the original story, and is able to give the Things more fleshed out personalities without losing sight of their image in so many of our minds. This is a tremendous achievement.

I think we’re all pretty familiar with the story. A little kid named Max is having kid troubles at home and so escapes into this imaginary world populated with these crazy creatures that are all come combination of different animal parts, and like most politicians, he becomes their king by making promises that he can’t keep. But he escaped the real world to this land to get away from his troubles, only to discover that the Things aren’t big warm fuzzies, they’re emotional creatures with combative relationships with each other and powerful tempers. It was a daring move for Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers to make a children’s movie with so much darkness, but it was also a smart move.

Jonze starts the movie with quick editing and hand-held camera work, lending a documentary-style realism to our introduction to Max’s life in the real world, and then he smartly continues the same shooting style when Max gets to the island where the wild Things are. I’ve heard complaints about this, but for me it really made the beautifully photographed environment feel palpably real, and it made the Things more realistic to me as well, like they were really there and the filmmakers just photographed them.

The voices of the Things were the make-or-break element for me, and there are times when they sound just a little too normal, a little too human, but overall they are wonderful performances across the board, particularly from James Gandolfini as the troubled Carol. And 12-year-old Max Records gives a perfect performance as Max. I would never have thought that they could get a performance out of someone so young that fit so well with the images in Sendak’s book. And the costume department in this movie definitely deserves some awards!

But for the most part, most of the criticism that I’ve heard against the movie is that it’s not kid-friendly enough. Yeah, whatever. Go watch Finding Nemo again if you don’t want a little dark reality mixed in with your childish fantasy. You know what else had darkness in it? Labyrinth, one of my all-time favorite movies, and I have no time for anyone who roundly condemns it because their 5-year-old got scared. Jonze and Eggers took a huge risk taking on the film adaptation of a book like “Where The Wild Things are,” and they succeeded brilliantly. Like Jonze’s two previous films, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Where The Wild Things Are is a delightful artistic creation that we should be thankful for. Bravo!

The Bean Meter