As one of the potentially-millions of children that read Where the Wild Things Are as a youth, learning of the upcoming release of this film – and of Spike Jonze’s attachment to the project – certainly piqued my interest. Where the Wild Things Are was, to me, one of the forgotten books of my childhood; I only remembered it when it was mentioned. All I remembered, when I thought about the plot, was a child becoming a king over some wild things. Searching on the net, I realised that, lo and behold, that was the entire plot. How on earth could this be fleshed out for a feature length?

I think what’s really admirable about this adaptation is its refusal to massively complicate the plot in the slightest. Instead of constructing an all-new backstory to the world of the wild things or anything similar, Jonze’s only complication is to make most of the wild things represent someone in Max’s real world; G.W. as his sister, Judith as his mother (she even looks like Catherine Keener), Ira as his mother’s boyfriend, and Carol as, well, him. This is effectively an extrapolation from the book, where the wild things represented Max’s wild side. The wild things are completely and utterly childish, charming but mindlessly destructive. They construct a fort to keep outsiders away (even though there aren’t really any outsiders) with secret entrances and then sabotage it, they throw dirt clods at each other, etc. It’s startling how easily Jonze recreates childhood here. I remember people complaining and saying “I QUIT” during war games, and being deliberately pelted for this. I remember enjoying tackling people, but being terrified when group tackled and suffering from minor claustrophobia. Admittedly, I don’t remember being terrified of the sun dying, but I’m sure Woody Allen does.

So what we have here is a film without any real plot. Good. Plot’s overrated, in my opinion. I’ve said before (see; my Transformers editorial) that I think summer blockbusters should probably attempt to communicate visuals and feelings and effectively eradicate plot as much as possible. As Carol would say, “Hey, this film gets it”. Earlier this year, I reviewed Up, and noted that the last half of the film wasn’t as strong as the first; it was, in fact, when the plot kicked in that things went a little awry. Where the Wild Things Are is a film about relationships, where all of its drama comes from the kind of spats children usually throw, where all of its excitement comes from pointless games that the wild things play.

The intriguing thing is that we know from the start the lesson that Max is going to learn (as the wild things also do). What sustains the film isn’t the lesson itself necessarily, but how they get there. It’s arguably a film that may be too dark for children, and certainly it can be terrifying (especially, as a fellow moviegoer pointed out, how Carol’s verbal spats are even more frightening when you realise he’s John damned Soprano), but it’s possibly an experience that would still benefit a child. I mean, Time Bandits ends with

*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*thehouseexplodingandhisparentsdying*SPOILER*SPOILER*

so I’m not sure how damaging this kind of film could be.

Either way, it’s a very cleverly constructed movie.

Rating:

(I managed to work the title of previous Spike Jonze films into this review. I am ever so cool)