There's a way of effectively killing childlike whimsy in about three lines of dialogue, and Spike Jonze has found it. Basically, you get your furry and imaginative critters, faithfully rendered from the delightful Maurice Sendak illustrations, and then you give them more neuroses than the patient list of a New York psychiatrist. It's kind of like seeing a dinner theatre troupe act out a Woody Allen movie; weird, sad and too chatty.
But Where The Wild Things Are isn't always like that. At the beginning of the movie, we get a fleshed-out Max. Instead of the simple and happily destructive character of the book, he's a kid with divorced parents, a sister who's ditched him to be a teenager and seemingly no other friends. But still, his joy at making a snow fort, and then his sadness when it's destroyed, are intense and imaginative in a way that's not present when Max meets the Wild Things, for all the expert production design.
It's sad, because most of the film is beautifully shot. Sometimes the images aren't quite in focus and feel like hazy dream. But before you can get too dreamy, it's back to the monsters processing, telling Max they're "downers" and asking if he "can keep the hurt away." Which left me with one question: Why bother filming a children's book if you're just going to turn it into an adult's therapy project?
2 comments:
I mean, I think what Jonze took from it was that the imaginative experience of the wild things was Max's way of maturing. As he learned more about the realities of life he escaped to an imagined landscape populated by incredible monsters. His experiences coloured that realm as much as his fantasies, and in the end he abandons the imaginary realm because he knows he has outgrown it. The neuroses of the monsters were just Max's, projected onto others as he strived not to deal with the realities of life.
All of that is a pretty far stretch of the original book, but that's what I took from it. Personally I think it's a fantastic idea, it was just poorly executed.
Also, the capitals you used in the statement, "when Max meets the Wild Things," definitely got me thinking of Denise Richards and Neve Campbell. Which is slightly problematic given that my name is Max... Really that changed my whole experience of the movie... both movies... fuck
Now putting that spin on WTWTA would have been quite the departure from the book.
Talk about growing up... and out. Ifyaknowwhaddamean.
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