Where the Wild Things Are

2009

Director: Spike Jonze

Distributor: Warner Brothers

Key Elements: Lines – Characters – Message – Concept - Symbolism – Visual

Review:

Jonze brings this Maurice Sendak's masterpiece children's book to life in visual splendor and injected with raw human emotion.

Max is lonely.  He misses his absent father.  He feels ignored and unprotected by his older sister.  And now he's having to share his mother with her work and new boyfriend.  Lacking the emotional maturity to handle his pain, Max runs away.

He ends up Where the Wild Things Are.  The creatures Max meets make him their king, and he begins to lead them in building a new home.  But his own wounds are personified in the group of friendly monsters. Like Max, these monsters are longing for relationship, but their own insecurities leave them regretfully unable to secure connection.

[Spoiler]

Max eventually has to leave the monsters.  But despite the hurt feelings, they are sad to see him go.  And despite the fight Max had with his mother, she welcomes him home again.

The ultimate message here is that friendship can't be contingent on one's own feelings.  It's about making space in our lives for each other - and being willing to forgive.

It wasn't what I expected, but I loved this movie.

Trailer:

Quotes:

• Will you keep out all the sadness?
• And on our way... I can show you your kingdom. This is all yours. You're the owner of this world. Everything you see is yours. Oh, except that hole over there, that's Ira's. The tree's yours, but the hole is Ira's. But everything else is yours. Except for that rock over there, that's not yours. That little rock next to the big rock. But everything else in the kingdom... except for that stick. That little stick right there, that's not yours. I want you to be king forever, Max.
• Happiness isn't always the best way to be happy.
• What? I never heard that... Oh, come on. That can't happen. I mean you're the king, and look at me, I'm big! how can guys like us worry about a tiny little thing like the sun, hmm?
• Well, look: this used to be all rock, and now it's sand, and then, one day, it's going to be dust, and then the whole island will be dust, and then... well I don't even know what comes after dust.
• You're not really a king, are you?
• We were gonna make a whole world like this. Now, everyone used to come here, but you know... you know what it feels like when all your teeth are falling out really slowly and you don't realize and then you notice that, well, they're really far apart. And then one day... you don't have any teeth anymore…Well it was like that.
• You're the first king we haven't eaten.
• Don't go. I'll eat you up; I love you so.

Stills: