WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Spike Jonze, 2009)

date watched: October 16, 2009
location: IMAX theater, Lincoln 13 AMC, NYC

I would be interested, first of all, to find out the specific demographics of this film. My best assumption would be that there may be more children for the opening week, who have probably been read the Caldecott favorite by their parents. They’re probably not as fascinated as their parents were when they were children in the 90s and earlier. It’s actually quite a violent film as well; the wild “animals” bump into things and get hurled at with sticks and stones and such, but are never really wounded. It reminds me something I was once told about the violence in Sunday cartoons: Tom is steam-rolled, burnt, and rammed into, but in the next episode, he re-appears to pick on his favorite mouse. It’s really the same case for Where the Wild Things Are.

This film is definitely not what the average spectator would have wanted to see, I would imagine. I saw it on IMAX, and the handheld camera motions were at times nauseating. I almost wish I hadn’t spent that extra money to feel so sick. In any case, there is also the somewhat slower pace that definitely produced some yawn waves throughout the crowd.

What the spectator is watching is essentially a puppet show, except it’s played out by large furry beasts in an unknown island somewhere. The monster couple in focus, K.W. and Carol, are reenacting what I imagine to be Max’s parent’s break-up. We have met the mother (played by Catherine Keener), who is a highly strung, stressed out single mother trying to juggle a job, two children, and a new boyfriend. Though we haven’t met the father, there are souvenirs scattered throughout Max’s bedroom that leads us to believe that he had been a loving father, before things went awry. A trophy dons a plaque that honors Max as the owner of the world, and when Carol later tells Max that he is the “owner of their kingdom,” the match is made explicit. Carol’s/the father’s problem is that he is much too possessive of K.W./the mother, and wants everything to be perfect. In order to displace their tensions, K.W. and Carol try to protect Max in their own ways, but Carol, who is much too dominating, loses control and Max is ultimately taken in by K.W.

I especially love the ending: if there’s something both adults and children need to function is sleep, and to the mother, it’s her way of expressing relief at finding her son, and also telling him that she is no longer angry enough to get mad at him. The trailer and posters mistakenly led me to believe that this was mainly about the childish sentiments we sacrifice and forget as adults. It also didn’t help that they chose “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire as the background music for the trailer. Though it is a component, it isn’t the main component. It’s about a child’s way of coping with loss, and how he understands now the sacrifice that is involved with a separation.