The Clarion

Issue date: 10/28/09 Section: Entertainment

The adventure of a young boy named Max begins after he has been scolded for misbehaving. He then sails away to where the wild things are. Anxious to fit in, he becomes the ruler he's always wanted to be for a group of wild things who long for a king.

Maurice Sendak's 1963 classic is a nine-page illustrated book containing no more than twenty sentences, so certainly director Spike Jonze was faced with quite a large task when taking on something so small and turning it into a 102-minute film. That being said, it's understandable that everyone who walks into the theater this month to view the film is expecting something a little different.

As an only child, I was very impressed by the story of Max sailing to where he could let his inner wild thing out, so when the trailer for the film was first released last spring, I felt an overwhelming amount of joy and excitement. I was overjoyed at the idea of capturing the magic of the wild rumpus on the big screen.

Visually, it's fair to say Jonze really did capture the whimsical magic that was so largely anticipated by children, young and old, with the very indie, handmade look and feel of some of the scenery, and even the wild things themselves. Unfortunately, much of the magic is overshadowed by a dialogue that lacks any hint of intelligence. At first, it was cute and playful, but by the end of the film, the childish vernacular becomes redundant. There were also a few elements added into the storyline that could have been better off left out because they seemed to dull the entire plot down.

The wild things themselves were all so depressed, and I couldn't imagine why. As a child reading the book, I thought their lives seemed so lighthearted and fun, that finding them to be so depressed and worried in the movie was the largest disappointment. Still, there was enough beauty within all the sadness that I felt a tinge of the magic I wanted, throughout.

Finally, I wish I had taken a box of tissues along with me, because although I anticipated that the movie would be sad, I had no idea just how sad it would be. It's no secret that Max will inevitably have to go home, but the parting scene truly broke my heart. Jonze created a strong bond between Max and the wild things, so naturally the goodbye sequence would be a tearjerker.

Although some of the magic was lost in dialogue and the overall sadness of the monsters, visually the movie took my breath away on several occasions. I feel as though the whimsical feeling of the book was captured a number of times in the movie, and although it left me feeling sad and uneasy, I definitely longed to howl along with Max and the wild things.

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