By Joe Leibovich

There is a great deal of magic in director Spike Jonez’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book Where the Wild Things Are.  It is a movie that creates a very palpable world of wonder and beauty. However, I am not entirely sure who the target audience is for this film and I am not entirely sure the magic lasts through the entire film.

Jonez, along with Dave Eggers adapted Sendak’s very short book into a fully realized film vision.  It is the story of a young boy named Max (played to perfection by neophyte Max Records) who feels alienated and abandoned by his single mother (Catherine Keener) and sister.  One evening, after his sister’s friends destroy his snow fort and his mother has a date over for dinner (an inexplicable usage of Mark Ruffalo, who may have 2-3 lines),  the energetic and angry Max throws a tantrum and flees the house.  He finds a boat and sails away to an island inhabited by huge and wonderous monsters.  Through trickery, he avoids being eaten by them to become their king. And that, as the book and movie say, is when the wild rumpus begins.

The Wild Things are true marvels.  They are a actual costumes, not CGI creations.  And that choice gives this film a feeling of reality and warmth.  The visuals on the island of the Wild Things are stunning. From the creatures themselves to the various structures and landscapes that are gilmpses from Max’s “real life” are quite amazing.

The acting by all the participants is excellent.  Max Records is a true find, and is absolutely perfect in his role.  The voice actors who portray the Wild Things fill their roles with humor and feeling.  Each of the Wild Things seems to be a piece of Max or people in Max’s life.   James Gandolfini is Carol, who is Max’s closest surrogate on the isle.  He gives a nuanced and emotion filled performance as a beast with anger issues who feels ignored, just like a certain little boy in a wolf suit.  The entire ensemble of beasts is terrific, from Catherine O’Hara as a “downer” monster, to Forrest Whittaker as a creature who likes to put holes in trees, to Lauren Ambrose, the mother/sister figure on the island.

The first half of Where the Wild Things Are is captivating, and unlike anything I have ever seen before.  No film has ever captured the feelings of being a boy so well.

About halfway through the movie, Gandolfini gives a speech about losing teeth slowly- how day by day they can get looser, and day by day the spaces between them grow larger, until one day you wake up and have no teeth left at all. It’s a wonderful metaphor for alienation and loss. It is, also, however, somewhat how I felt about the movie.

At a certain point, and I am not sure when it happened, I was no longer under the spell of this movie.  The emotional connection to Max had dissipated, and the movie simply did not have the impact on me it had held before.

This is not to say Where The Wild Things Are is not a good movie. It is. Spike Jonez has put together something very special.  I wonder if young children will truly enjoy this PG rated film from beginning to end, or if they may grow restless.  To its credit, Where The Wild Things Are deals with a lot of serious, emotional issues – childhood anger, loneliness, control issues. But it does it subtly, and in such a way that it shouldn’t bore the audience. Still, I wonder if it may be too much for children. And, if that is the case, who is this movie aimed at?

All that said, Where The Wild Things Are is a Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (sorry…), and it is a wholly original, sweet, and magical piece of filmmaking  that will stick with you for “through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year” if not longer.

On the Movie Report Card, I give Where The Wild Things Are an A-

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