Where The Wild Things Are

Spike Jonze took the difficult challenge of bringing to the screen the famous children's book by Maurice Sendak, "Where The Wild Things Are". In a few words and with neat and beautiful illustrations, Sendak tells the story of little Max, a boy dressed as a wolf who after a day of pranks and tantrums is punished and sent to his room without dinner. However, the lock down lasted almost nothing, since this imaginative child will move from there to the land of the monsters where he will be crowned king and will do his will.

Spike Jonze, director and screenwriter with Dave Eggers, will portray essentially the same story. However, you realize only when you read the story that it is difficult to imagine an entire movie based on these few pages. The key to success resided, from my point of view, in seeking to capture the essence of the book that can have, despite its apparent simplicity, multiple readings and interpretations. This multiplicity is given by the careful and elaborated illustrations.

Max is a boy, of course, but his wolf suit makes him look different, he disguises himself to run to his house causing disasters, he looks to establish his law turning himself into an indomitable animal. The drawings of the monsters are full of particular details: they are diverse and varied mixtures of animals with claws and sharp teeth, there is not one that resembles another and, through their attitudes and postures, we can guess some of their personalities.

Spike Jonze takes all these elements and gives them life. He strives to recreate hallucinatory aesthetic images, with these supernatural beings walking alongside with the wolf-child in the middle of the yellow desert sand, forests of tall trees or during the construction of a fantastic fortress.

As if this were not enough, the director focuses on the child and imagines a story for this little angry kid who does not want to follow orders. So then, we dive into the life of Max, who has a life like any other kid with an older sister who already has other interests and does not want to spend so much time with him; and a divorced mother who adores him but must work hard to maintain their home, while she also wants to restart her love life with another person.

Max is sad as you can only be when you are 10 years old and feeling infinitely alone and angry.  He feels that he is the only person in the world that is feeling like that and cannot do anything, anything, to improve the situation and, above all, to avoid this horrible rage that comes from sadness and that seems to dominate everything.

The problem, and this is the riskiest bet of the movie, is that monsters are nothing more than representations of the "wild side" that dominates and for them life is not easy either.

Trapped in their anger and pain, life in this world of monsters is funny and sad at the same time, relationships are complex, full of affection, camaraderie, but also accompanied with fear, resentment, and mistrust.

Carol, for example, the monster closer to Max, is sweet, creative, but at the same time, unable to control himself when he sees that his wishes for everything to be perfect are frustrated. Carol is capable of hurting those who love him without hesitation.

It is not an easy journey the one that Max has taken, it is a journey of self-discovery and healing that has funny moments and others that are dark and painful.

Director: Spike Jonze

Writers: Spike Jonze (screenplay), Dave Eggers (screenplay)

Stars: Max Records, Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker