December 2009
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Where The Wild Things Are (PG)
Posted 7th December 2009

Does the best trailer of the year translate into the best film of the year? Alas no, but it is still a wildly creative and transportive one.

A story of childhood imagination and wonderment, Where the Wild Things Are is the tall tale of rambunctious tearaway Max (played impressively by Max Records) who, upon running away from his Spielbergian-fractured family home, ends up in a strange land full of unusual and feral creatures. Taking him in as one of their own they soon elect him King and Max vows to bring eternal happiness to them all. But little does he know that maintaining a status quo will be much harder than even he could imagine...

An ambitious adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic and much-loved children’s book by the uncategorizable Spike Jonze, this big screen fleshed-out interpretation does impressively and (mostly) successfully expand the story out from the original picture book (that contained only 12 sentences of dialogue, total) but suffers from languid sections of running time where nothing much happens at all. As you might probably expect from such sparse source material. The impact of which is, of course, detrimental to the film as a whole but not devastating. Because when you’ve got such wonderful creature creations and a central child performance in your locker the doubts and worries of meagre story offerings seem to largely dissipate.

Beautifully brought-to-life through a combination of state-of-the-art puppetry and expressive CGI-augmented faces, Max’s Wild Things are delightful creatures of a child’s mind the likes of which haven’t been so memorably realised on-screen since Jim Henson’s (The Muppets / Fraggle Rock) heyday. ‘Course seeing as these are creations from the talented crew continuing his legacy at Jim Henson Studios that should come as little surprise. Cuddly and fuzzy and, most importantly, real-seeming there hasn’t been creatures like this in features since every 80s kids favourite Labyrinth (which is another Jim Henson production by-the-by...).

Impressively acting alongside these Wild Things is relative newcomer Records (he previously played a small role in Rian Brick Johnson’s sophomore effort The Brothers Bloom prior to this Wild adventure that has yet to be seen on these shores). Just about treading the right side of the fine line between precocious and spoilt so we stay on his side, Records has one of those cherubic faces with something just a little wild behind those angelic eyes that was clearly made to be seen on the big screen. As long as the Hollywood machine doesn’t chew him up and spit him out, as it has so many child stars before, expect big things from him in the future.

A bit like Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox though, Jonze’s Wild Things suffers by perhaps being a little too original and individual for its own good. Which in this time of unnecessary remakes and sequels feels like a sinful criticism to make but nevertheless... Yes it’s good to be offbeat, but when you’re so out of the ordinary that it becomes difficult to connect to the events on-screen then you have a problem. Which happens here. There’s no real sense of feeling flowing through Max’s journey, it’s all very emotionally cold. Perhaps the fact that we’re not being manipulated into sensing something specific should be applauded and perhaps I am so indoctrinated now into being so manipulated is a fault all of my own and not the filmmakers? But, as much as I enjoyed accompanying Max on his adventure, I didn’t feel particularly emotionally invested in it.

Wild Things also falls into that nether realm of films featuring children about childhood issues that isn’t primarily made for children but in fact for adults. Which is a treacherous area to traverse and attract adults into, perhaps partly explaining the issues outlined above? The one thing you can’t fault Jonze’s film for though is in its ability to transport you back to a (play)time when snowball fights and body-bundles and running breakneck around in a wild rumpus were just about the best fun you could have. This Wii generation don’t know what they are missing...

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