October 17th, 2009

And There Be Spoilers Within.

First off, Erok....sir, I wouldn't take Ally to see Where the Wild Things Are and not because it's too violent or scary but because I have serious doubts it'll keep a child's attention. In fact, my theater.there was a shitload of children and they were restless.

I'm going to say this isn't a kid's movie simply because it's more about examining the psychology of Max (and probably many children like him old and young). There is action and comedy but it's small and much of the comedy completely went over the audience's heads...except for me and the sister and few other parents. A Wild Thing would say something and a few chuckles would be heard...then one would fall down from a dirtball and the laughing was loud from the children.

Now spoilers.

The movie starts off with Max who's either lost his father or (more likely) his parents got divorced. It's not that he has a broken home...it's just he's lost in the shuffle. His mom's working late and is tired while at the same time trying her hand at dating again. His older sister has outgrown him and has her own friends and life going on. As such Max is alone and lonely, which is something the movie conveys in every aspect...in the silence of the beginning and the ending, in the image of Max and his many many crawling scenes, and in the dialogue.

He starts a snowball fight with his sister and her friends to get attention, to play. This has a drawback in the fact that his igloo is destroyed and anyone who's ever lost anything to older kids knows his pain and the rage at the inaction of those who know and love them.

Max is small. He's not terribly clever but he is brave and he wants attention and affection. Being a child and having distant relations, he lashes out. His anger at the older kids and his sister by wrecking her room and destroying a stick heart he made for her in school. His desire for his mother's affections causes him to go 'wild' screaming at his mother and biting her. He then runs off and eventually sails to the Where the Wild Things Are.

....and they want to eat him.

He lies to them and says he has powers to destroy things and hide in small tight places. He does this to be bigger and stronger in their eyes. But it's still interesting that he sees himself as a force of destruction instead of anything else.

The Wild Things themselves all represent aspects of himself and also his family members. Carol is both his rage and his father, KW is both his nurturing nature and his mother. This is not up to debate, Carol says the same exact line his father had inscribed on a globe in Max's room and KW and Max's mother both fall asleep looking at him in the exact same way.

Of course, Max and Carol have the strongest bond because Max has to come to terms with his anger. They're fast friends and they love each other. I do believe their relationship is the core of the movie.

Max starts a war to have fun and keep people from being lonely. Which is exactly what he did earlier in the movie and this shows again that violence isn't a way to attract attention and feel better about yourself. This ends up hurting the Bird one (I don't know many names I saw the flick once). Max then role reverses with his sister...only more violent when he orders others to keep hurting the Bird. It made my stomach fall out of me...I felt bad for Max because this wasn't going to end well.

They then decide to make a fort, which Max did earlier and invited his mother to be in...but she was dating Mark Rufflio. This new fort means everyone can be a family together (which is a huge desire for Carol) and it kills those from the outside.

We need to talk about Carol. Carol loves KW and is jealous of her spending time with two owls instead of him. His rage springs up from this. And when Max and KW bring in the two owls to the fort....Carol freaks out because the fort for them and not these other people. The fort's been "ruined"....Carol's need for attention both from KW and from Max causes Carol to become very threatening. And if this was PG-13 instead of PG we'd be actually frightened by Carol's rage. He's the most threatening thing in the movie and up to this point he's been the most lovable.

Max is then faced with how petty he's been behaving and what his mother meant by saying he was wild. Because next to Carol's size Max feels powerless just like his overworked and exhausted mother feels about him.

Max eventually decides to set things right and go home. He apologizes to the Bird one and tells Carol he's not really a King of Vikings. This doesn't go over well. Carol ends up destroying much and maiming another of the Wild Things. He tries to fix his damage to his friend and it's....not fixed just like Max tried fixing his sister's stick heart.

Max goes to the fort to talk to Carol, but Carol's destroyed their room and model. Max leaves without saying much...Carol sees that he's about to lose his best friend and runs off to meet him. They stare at each other and howl like wolves as Max goes back and silently makes up to his mother.

It's a good movie. It's a beautiful movie. There's a sadness to it and by god I can't stop thinking about it. It's a good movie....easily 4/5.

But...it's not wonderful, fun, or whimsical. It's thoughtful, beautiful, and great.

The kiddies will find it boring. The adults will either like it or not because of how it's shot and how much of the point is never directly stated.

This bodes ill for this beautiful movie since rumor has it it cost 100 million dollars to make. I really don't think it'll recoup that in its theatrical run. I think it's worth seeing because of its beauty and how its message about growing up.

But it's rather flat in some meaningful way. For every strength there's an equal flaw and while I think many of you will like it...I know damn well about five of you will dislike it.

Finally it's 1 1/2 hours long and on my way out I heard someone say, "That was a long movie!"