Let me preface this review by stating that Where the Wild Things Are isn’t appropriate for some children. If your child is particularly sensitive, then perhaps he or she isn’t ready for it. I took my nieces (ages 12, 7, 5) to see it and my cousin took her children (9, 6, 4), and they all loved it. I will say that my younger nieces did get a bit bored in the middle, so that’s another point to consider as well.
What is annoying me is the fact that people — mostly Christians, it pains me to say — are ripping the movie to shreds over things like MAX WASN’T PUNISHED FOR RUNNING AWAY. Can we say missed the point much?
Listen, I am sensitive when it comes to movie content. There is a lot out there — whether in the movie theater or on the television screen — that isn’t suitable for kids, and some of that masquerades as family-friendly material. I don’t think Where the Wild Things Are qualifies as inappropriate. (I also think the people who are accusing the movie of being anti-Christian are reading way, way, way too much into it.)
I found the movie to be an accurate portrayal of our fallen world. Max is a creative, lonely nine-year-old who loves commanding imaginary foot soldiers, building forts and igloos, and tormenting the family dog in his wolf costume. But his make-believe world isn’t perfect, because reality steps in to send it into disarray.
Max’s dad isn’t in the picture. His sister’s friends bully him and she does nothing to defend him. His mother loves him dearly but is harried and busy and can’t give him the attention he needs. He doesn’t know how to handle all of his turbulent emotions, and so one night, he lashes out at the one person who loves him the most — his mother. Terrified at what he has just done and by his mother’s subsequent anger, he races out of the house and into the night.
It is at a secluded, wooded lake that his imagination takes over, and we’re introduced to the Wild Things, which, aptly, mirror the characteristics, personalities, and complex, conflicting emotions of the people in Max’s life — and Max himself.
The Wild Things, led by Carol, are searching for a perfect world where happiness is ever-present and nothing ever goes wrong. For a while, they think that Max will help them achieve this sense of utopia, but when they realize he is, after all, just a boy, the group dynamics begin crumbling.
Through it all, Max learns that families, even those who love each other dearly, will always have conflict. Though he wrestles with the urges present in most males, such as aggression, the thirst for adventure and power, and the longing to be loved and accepted, he learns how to moderate these feelings amongst the Wild Things.
I think the best summary I found came from the gentleman who reviewed the movie for Focus on the Family. He put it this way: “As a fan of the fairly lighthearted book, I was not prepared for the emotional complexity of the movie. Its melancholic undertone surprised me—but I can’t say that it put me off, because in many ways, Wild Things portrays a fallen world that yearns for redemption, wrestling with longing while never really giving viewers an absolutely solid place to land emotionally or spiritually. In a strange but powerful way, this made me all the happier to know with certainty that this flawed existence we call life isn’t all there is.”
Where the Wild Things Are is a beautiful, psychologically rich film, and Spike Jonze did a tremendous job.
Max Records as Max in Where the Wild Things Are
Posted by Val on October 28, 2009 at 10:42 am
Amen to that!
Posted by Josh on October 30, 2009 at 12:07 am
Thank you for your review! I LOVED the film. Not only did the film make me break down in tears, but the trailer did as well. I left a short review at Christianity Today. It seems almost completely along the mindset as your review.
Posted by Jen on October 30, 2009 at 1:38 am
Just read your review at Christianity Today – I had the same reaction. I wasn’t expecting it to be so emotionally complex, but I welcomed it. There should be more movies made like that, that rely on evoking an emotional response rather than just dazzling us with CGI effects and explosions and very little content.