Remember when you were a kid and somebody asked you ‘what did you do today’ and your answer was simply ‘I just played’. This is the feeling you’re left with when you watch Where the Wild Things are, no matter what age you are, you’ll want to go home, build a fort and just play.
Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the children’s classic has been long awaited by bloggers, critics and film lovers alike. The original book by Maurice Sendak contains only 10 sentences so Jonze faced quite a challenge turning it into a feature length film. The original adapation was tossed aside after audiences found it too dark and Jonze set to work again. Years later Jonze finally finished what promises to be a very fine adaptation in film making. [Watch trailer]
Max, played by the wonderful Max Records (what an excellent name), treats his full body wolf suit, hood with ears included, as his second skin using it to escape the burden of grown-ups. Fed up with his teenage sister being too cool to hang out with him anymore and his divorced mother’s attention directed at her new beau, Max roars like a wolf from the top of kitchen table. He then bites his mother and runs with fierce childhood passion out the front door in search of a land where playing is the order of the day. He arrives on an island which is the home to the Wild Things. Within minutes he is their King and (now famously) roars “Let the wild rumpus start!”.
Each character represents a characteristic unique to being a child. The combination of Sendaks’s wonderful story and illustrations and Jonze’s vision and creativity has resulted in a classic for all ages. Where the Wild Things Are will bring you right back to your childhood in the way no other in-your-face, Hollywood-ised kids movie ever has.
By: Trish Keenan
Here’s the trailer:
