Where the Wild Things Are

I went this past weekend to see Where the Wild Things Are with our movie book club (read a book, then watch the film adaptation). I thought the film was beautiful but not at all satisfying.

The film tapped into the psychological drama that’s such a powerful part of Max’s story. At one point a wild thing asked Max if he were a bad person and Max could only answer: “I don’t know.” That universal fear, that perhaps the emotional beast inside is our true self, that we really are untameable wild things, was a major theme of the movie.

Unfortunately, the film didn’t leave Max’s emotional worries in the realm of metaphor and implication. Instead, the wild things weren't really wild: they were just a bunch of monsters dealing with lots of personal issues. They were overwhelmed by smothering, frustrating emotions that so consumed them they were incapable of finding or offering comfort.

That’s what made the film so dissatisfying. I was left feeling that neither Max nor his mother nor any of the wild things had any hope of handling their emotional burdens.

In a 1964 letter describing the “revolutionary” qualities of Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak’s editor, Ursula Nordstrom, wrote: “I think Maurice’s book is the first picture book to recognize the fact that children have powerful emotions, anger and love and hate and only after all that passion, the wanting to be ‘where someone loved him best of all’” (Dear Genius, ed. Leonard S. Marcus, p. 184). While the film portrayed the strong emotions—anger and hate, loneliness and envy—I felt it ultimately offered no passion or love, no hope that could take Max from powerless to victorious.