Where The Wild Things Are Ira - T-Tees - Your Answers Await, Life's Questions Unraveled

We rewatched Where the Wild Things are tonight. It’s a great movie, so I thought it would be OK to repost the review we made of it.

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This movie is about Max (played nicely by Max Records), a boy who is lonely and misunderstood. His sister is growing up faster than Max and stops paying attention to him as she reaches her teens; his mother is too busy with work and her new boyfriend, and school is not going great either. He basically wants attention and isn’t getting it. One night, he gets into a silly fight with him mum, and runs away. He runs through the woods until he reaches the water. He boards a small boat, takes it out, goes to sleep and when he wakes up it is night and he is approaching a strange magical island where the animals can talk and they behave socially, almost like a group of people.

He finds a group of creatures in turmoil. Max confronts the group and tells them that he is a great king and can help them solve all their problems. They crown him king, and now start to build up what they think is the greatest society.

Each creature represents something in Max’s life. The biggest one, Carol…

…is mostly Max and represents his swinging emotions, switching from happiness to anger to depression with little warning, while another monster, Douglas…

…is Carol’s safety blanket and represents the same for Max; a friend who is nearly always obedient.

K.W. represents Max’s sister, Claire.

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Both characters keep leaving the group to hang out with cooler friends, K.W. breeding the same jealousy in Carol as Claire does in Max.

Alexander is Max’s fear and insecurity.

Physically Alexander is smaller than the rest of the Wild Things, which is a nice detail for a character that always feels ignored and attention-starved.

The two most telling creatures are Judith and Ira.

They represent Max’s parents. When Max stormed out of his house to begin his “adventure”, it was rage towards his mother that served as the catalyst. It’s no wonder then that Judith displays all the things Max dislikes about his mother: she is the one that doubts him, questions his motives, and generally ruins his good times.

Ira represents Max’s father, who we never see in the film. There’s no doubt that Max longs for him and shows nothing but jealousy and anger towards his mother’s new boyfriend. The most obvious clue is that Judith and Ira are the only couple on the island. Ira is a sweet, lovable character, which is how Max would idealize his father. And Ira is the only monster that Max hugs when he departs.

I quite liked this movie. I had no expectations to it whatsoever, so there wasn’t much for it to live up to. But still. I was quite entertained.

5 stars out of 6.

Here’s what my better half Flamingo Rinse has to say about Where the Wild Things are:

Spike Jonze’s 2009 version of Where The Wild Things Are is of course based on the 1963 book of the same name by Maurice Sendak. Considering it’s basically a picture book, with (only) 37 pages and 338 words in total, this movie is a damn good feat of imagineering and scripting, not to mention visualization.

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I quite liked this movie from the get go – it starts by introducing us into Max’s life – filmed in a most realistic manner, with handheld camera shots of Max rushing around and playing with the family Dog, rapid snapshots and over the shoulder views – it’s *just* like you’re there playing with Max and the Dog yourself. Pretty soon we get drawn into Max’s dilemma of wanting, but not getting, enough attention from his older sister, or his Mum – his Dad’s obviously no longer living with the family – Max is no longer the complete centre of anyone’s world except his own, and he’s getting frustrated and, frankly, whiny about the whole deal – and this is where we come in.

Zaphira summarises the story very well, so I’ll just concentrate on the visuals and other reasons why I enjoyed this movie.

The ‘Wild Things’ are animatronic creatures by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop – and man, although the rational part of you is always aware that they’re essentially big furry suits with people inside, the eyes, and the movements and general body language are fabulous and I was entirely able to suspend any disbelief and accept real character, personality and emotions in these things. They worked very well indeed, for me. The voices too, are entirely unexpected and so ‘normal’ – James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) is our main character, Carol, and when he and the other creatures talk together, it’s like we’re overhearing a group therapy session of people trying to articulate their thoughts and feelings, entirely unaware that they have eavesdroppers.

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The visualisations too are amazing (to my eyes anyway). I spent much of the movie feeling that the scenery was very familiar, like my own (ex)back garden or something – recognisable in a way you can’t quite put into words, you know what I mean? Anyway, I realised at some point that it was the Trees – it turns out the movie was filmed in South Australia (the shoot was based in Melbourne), and the Gum Trees were what triggered my geographical déjà vu. Nice 🙂

I’d like to mention also the set, on the mythical island that Max sails to in the beginning, and where the majority of the rest of the story plays out.

The Castle that the ‘things’, with Max’s inspirational direction, start to build, is *the* most beautiful construction – seemingly made out of sticks, it grows out of the ground like some delicious, curving, soaring organic art form, it really would be worth having as an exhibition somewhere, it looks that cool :dead impressed:

This isn’t really a kids movie (I thought it was to start with) – it’s a little bit dark, rather self indulgent and I think leaves a number of things unsaid in expectation that the viewer – with experience, understanding and compassion – will fill in the quiet bits. On the other hand I might be giving it way too much credit with regard to depth – but a movie is what you see in it, what you yourself make out of it, at times…I think it’s beautifully executed and has been filmed by Mr Spike Jonze in an extremely sympathetic, engaging and very, very artistic way.

I give this 5 stars out of 6.