Where The Wild Things Are Review

I have to confess that for me, a little quirk goes a long way. In recent years Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry have emerged as the principal merchants of quirk, creating films that are much beloved as offbeat classics. Much of what they produce leaves me somewhat cold but Where The Wild Things Are had completely the opposite effect. It's definitely "arty" in the more populist sense of the term and possesses much of Jonze's dreaded quirk but it's a warm, heartfelt, melancholy reflection on that time when childhood is on the verge of disappearing as adolescence and adulthood loom large, as well as the fear and uncertainty that accompany that change.

Max Records plays Max, a young boy without a Father whose Mother (Catherine Keener) is seeing a new man (Mark Ruffalo in a strange, basically one-scene cameo) and whose sister has already moved beyond childhood into the next stage of her life, wanting to spend her time with her friends rather than with her brother. As the film starts, she and her friends have taken a snowball fight with Max too far, destroying his play fort and hurting him in the process. Later on, Max's fear of the change happening within his family manifests in a terrible argument with his Mother, culminating in him biting her on the shoulder. He runs off, comes across a boat, sets sail across the ocean and finds an island inhabited by enormous furry monsters, the eponymous wild things. Through his relationships with them, in particular with their leader Carol (voiced wonderfully by James Gandolfini) Max comes to understand some of what he's feeling but he never "learns life lessons" in that awful, mawkish Hollywood way. Indeed, Max never articulates what he goes through and it's we the audience who, as adults, can understand it on his behalf and articulate it for him. It's this relationship between audience and film that makes Where The Wild Things Are as moving and affecting as it is. We know what he's feeling because we've all been there and watching the creatures act out the various aspects of Max's life and personality, we and he come to greater understanding of the situation he is in and the way in which he copes with it.

The Wild Things themselves are a truly fantastic creation, all actors in suits with CG used sparingly to bring greater expression to their faces. The cast are uniformly excellent with the aforementioned Gandolfini, Catherine O Hara and Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose standouts. Max is a child who loves play fighting, running and jumping around, and he brings this physicality to his relationship with the creatures. They being considerably bigger than him, there is danger inherent in much of their interaction but the emotional danger of not fitting in here, in the same way that he doesn't fit in at home, is even greater again and so Max throws himself into each and every moment with relish. The pain of these encounters is never shied away from, much to Jonze's credit. Incidentally, Jonze began his career on the TV show Jackass, directing the various stunts and insane dares and much of the physical scenes in the film are weirdly reminiscent of those moments on Jackass when characters would dress up in bear suits and fight each other!

The pain on display is emotional as well as physical. Indeed, if there is an overall feeling to the film it's one of sadness. This is a truthful depiction of what it means to be a child clinging to childhood and every happy or funny moment the film has is completely earned as a result. What gives the film further honesty is how Max is just as capable of inflicting pain as he is of receiving it. I mentioned earlier how Max has his snow fort destroyed by those bigger than he. Later on, he is embroiled in a dirt-clod fight with the wild things and inflicts a similar pain on one of his new friends who is as undeserving of the indignity as he was. Also, Max discovers the bones of previous guests to the island, something that gives great ominosity to the rest of his stay with his new friends, especially in those moments when Carol lets his temper get the better of him, in exactly the same way that Max does.

There are many tiny moments in the film that reveal a great deal about character. When Max has his fort destroyed for example, he goes into his sister's room to exact retribution and discovers an old present he made for her, presumably some years ago, that she keeps in her room. As he is destroying it, we get a real sense of the relationship they once had that Max now misses, but also of the relationship that is still possible for them when Max catches up with her and enters adulthood himself. The film is barely 90 minutes long which is good as there is very little story here, something that usually bothers me. But this film is built less on narrative and more on character and relationships, in the way I've just described, as well as emotion and tone and in those ways it works tremendously. Sentimental but never schmaltzy, nostalgic but never contrived, Where The Wild Things Are is without doubt my favourite of Spike Jonze's films.

8/10