Where the Wild Things Are (PG). Running time: 101 minutes. Director: Spike Jonze. Starring: Max Records, Katherine Keener, James Gandolfini
If the children don't grow up
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up
We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust
I guess we'll just have to adjust.
Growing up can be hard. In these lines from their song 'Wake Up', Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire seem to envision the move from innocence to experience as the process of being wrenched from the gleeful terror of childhood. The grower, in the process of growing, both experiences and causes pain. Finally, he 'adjusts' to the responsibilities of adulthood. Here, adjustment could easily be taken to mean resignation.
The song is featured in the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, and provides a useful lens. The film is inspired by an unconventional children's picture book, and is itself an unconventional children's film. It reflects the idea that while in many ways, childhood is a terrifying place to be, it is not as terrifying as what comes next.
There are monsters in Where the Wild Things Are — hulking, toothsome, hairy beasts that belong to a fantasy realm. But 'wild things' also exist within the film's portrayal of ordinary reality. During the opening scene, a boy dressed in a matted wolf costume chases and wrestles his pet dog on the floor of his living room. The vigour of his attack and his animalistic snarling is genuinely unsettling.
The boy, Max (Records), we learn, is a charismatic and troubled child. He is animated by a strong and erratic imagination, and prone to extremes of emotion. During a single sequence we see him move from the joy of a childhood game, to sorrow when the game goes wrong, to rage as he takes revenge, to remorse for his actions. There are hints of a mental illness, but, really, Max is simply Every Child, in exaggerated form.
Max is isolated. His beloved older sister Clair (Emmerichs) is disappearing into the self-centredness of adolescence. His mother (Keener) is both nurturing and somehow distant. She looks upon Max as if he is alien: with love, wonder, bewilderment and fear.
A sudden, ferocious conflict between mother and son causes Max to flee from his home, and into a fantasy world. He boards a tiny sailboat and crosses the troubled waters of a dark and uncharted ocean,