Where the Wild Things Are

I am probably one of the few people in the known universe who didn’t read this book as a child or to his children.  Granted my kids have read Where the Wild Things Are with their Grandparents so at least I don’t feel completely neglectful.  Still I had no preconceived expectations clouding my mind with possible images before I walked in and took my plush reclining seat at the theater.  The deal with my middle and youngest daughter had been to get the errands done in the morning, eat some lunch (pizza it turned out) and head to an afternoon movie.  Seemed like a lighthearted day full of work and fun.

We grabbed our seats, the lights dimmed and it remained dark for about an hour and a half as I began the process of watching a disturbed boy run wild with his imagination.  The movie was much more geared towards adults than kids.  My guess is it would not have done nearly as well at the box office had it not been tied to an extremely popular book.  It wasn’t that the movie was poorly done.  It was just the struggle to figure out who the target audience of the picture might be.  It was much too dark and powerful for kids and the characters were too kiddish for adults.  It seems to be a movie that has substance but lost its focus on who it was geared to entertain.

The book (from what I have heard) was about a boy who lost himself in his imagination to escape reality for a while.  This is the glory of kids.  When you get in trouble and are banished to solitude you can use your imagination to create an entire universe with a flick of the eyelids.  Kids are amazingly resilient.  The fantasyland of a child is peaceful and content.  A place where they are in control and anything in life can happen.  Candy and laughter is strewn about like snowflakes on a white wintery day.

The movie took the land of fantasy and turned it into a foreboding place where stuffed animals are monsters and each one was the depiction of the pent up anger and frustration the boy felt in real life; and he definitely has some anger issues.  Carol is the main animalistic friend of Max in his fantasy world and he spends most of his overpowering energy smashing everyone’s homes and scaring the shit out of anyone around him.  Max is even afraid on several occasions and Carol is nothing more than a portrait of his own anger.  Carol’s inability to control the emotional violent outbursts was probably the most disturbing thing.

Neither one of my kids (11 and7) were thrilled with the movie but again I have to say it was well done.  If you are a child psychologist and/or the parent of a troubled child you might find some true connections.  Having so many issues with my oldest daughter the movie hit home with me more than I cared.  My faulty expectations of a light hearted kid’s afternoon were dashed to pieces as Carol came close to ripping Max’s head off towards the end of the film.

So not a movie that I could recommend but definitely a movie that gets you thinking about children and what they must perceive life to be at times.  Who knows, on another day when I am not so concerned about my oldest daughter maybe I could have withstood the onslaught of anger the movie throws out but today it was a little too much.

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