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After a neighborhood campout was canceled for chilly weather, I took two disappointed chicas to see Where the Wild Things Are, a film based on the wonderful 1963 book by Maurice Sendak. Much has been debated about this Spike Jonze film: How do you make a movie from an "early reader" book with very few words? Is this really a kids' movie? Can the movie possibly recoup its extraordinary budget? Is this movie the 21st century's Red Balloon, a movie only elementary school teachers and film critics love? Can the director's artistic success be a commercial success? Why is the art direction such a combination of H.R. Pufnstuf and Apocolypse Now? Well, let's move on to the more important questions: Did Christine and her brood like it?

Unsurprisingly, I think I liked it better than my two ten year-old film critics that I had with me. (I did not bring our seven year-old, who does not like dark, or even tense, movies.) It isn't a movie for kids. It is, however, a movie very much about kids, particularly that species called the little boy. And, if you love little boys and the way their imaginations work, then you will love this movie. It's sort of like Big, only it's not as funny and our little boy goes to an imaginary land filled with very large monsters, not Manhattan. But the conversations that Max has with the monsters are the conversations he would have with himself if he were playing by himself, and they ring true to any one out there that loves a little boy. But, children aren't going to be that interested in how Max works out his problems with his mom and his sister by having conversations with the monsters about power, unconditional love, playing favorites, and maintaining relationships while growing as a person. Not all that captivating to the "guinea pig special forces" crowd!

What did I not like? O.K., so in the book, Max is just rambuctious and gets sent to his room without his dinner by his mom, who then sends dinner up to his room. The overall feel is that here is a loving, functional family, and Max is just a normal little boy who gets really involved in pretending to be a wolf and telling his mom he his going to eat her up. He's a boy with, as we used to say, "an overactive imagination." But, in the new generation, we don't have boys who are just boys with overactive imaginations. So, the movie depicts a slightly older boy with a single mother, who is loving and patient but having difficulties with her career and her dating life. The older sister, whom he adores, is in high school and ignoring him. (She may also be "making bad choices" as we see her drive off in a car with four boys.) We never see the dad, but overhear the sister's conversation about a weekend visit, so we assume that he is alive and just not around full-time. From the presence of a globe in Max's room, we are to suppose that the dad also has a great imagination and adventurous spirit, like Max, which may explain why he's not there making dinner, etc. The incident that sets off Max's imaginary journey is more serious than the one in the book, with Max having to be physically restrained by his mother, whom he then bites. I would have liked to have seen the movie be just about a boy with an overactive imagination and less grown-up baggage, who is trying to work out more innocent angst. I think the book celebrates the "wild thing" inside every little boy, not the "acting out" of ignored children who desperately need love and attention. With this setting of dysfunction, the movie then takes on a 1970's afterschool special feel about children of divorce.

That being said, I really liked the conversations that Max has with the monsters. On the imaginary island, the two main monsters (Caroll (James Gandolfini) and K.W. (Lauren Ambrose)) obviously care for each other but are growing apart, and it's hard to know if they are meant to be Max's parents or Max and his sister, Claire. I like to think of them as Max and Claire, but maybe that's because I have a Luke and Carter.

All in all, I liked the movie, but I think it will resonate more with the parents that have read the book to their little wild things than to the wild things themselves!

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After a neighborhood campout was canceled for chilly weather, I took two disappointed chicas to see Where the Wild Things Are, a film based on the wonderful 1963 book by Maurice Sendak. Much has been debated about this Spike Jonze film: How do you make a movie from an "early reader" book with very few words? Is this really a kids' movie? Can the movie possibly recoup its extraordinary budget? Is this movie the 21st century's Red Balloon, a movie only elementary school teachers and film critics love? Can the director's artistic success be a commercial success? Why is the art direction such a combination of H.R. Pufnstuf and Apocolypse Now? Well, let's move on to the more important questions: Did Christine and her brood like it?

Unsurprisingly, I think I liked it better than my two ten year-old film critics that I had with me. (I did not bring our seven year-old, who does not like dark, or even tense, movies.) It isn't a movie for kids. It is, however, a movie very much about kids, particularly that species called the little boy. And, if you love little boys and the way their imaginations work, then you will love this movie. It's sort of like Big, only it's not as funny and our little boy goes to an imaginary land filled with very large monsters, not Manhattan. But the conversations that Max has with the monsters are the conversations he would have with himself if he were playing by himself, and they ring true to any one out there that loves a little boy. But, children aren't going to be that interested in how Max works out his problems with his mom and his sister by having conversations with the monsters about power, unconditional love, playing favorites, and maintaining relationships while growing as a person. Not all that captivating to the "guinea pig special forces" crowd!

What did I not like? O.K., so in the book, Max is just rambuctious and gets sent to his room without his dinner by his mom, who then sends dinner up to his room. The overall feel is that here is a loving, functional family, and Max is just a normal little boy who gets really involved in pretending to be a wolf and telling his mom he his going to eat her up. He's a boy with, as we used to say, "an overactive imagination." But, in the new generation, we don't have boys who are just boys with overactive imaginations. So, the movie depicts a slightly older boy with a single mother, who is loving and patient but having difficulties with her career and her dating life. The older sister, whom he adores, is in high school and ignoring him. (She may also be "making bad choices" as we see her drive off in a car with four boys.) We never see the dad, but overhear the sister's conversation about a weekend visit, so we assume that he is alive and just not around full-time. From the presence of a globe in Max's room, we are to suppose that the dad also has a great imagination and adventurous spirit, like Max, which may explain why he's not there making dinner, etc. The incident that sets off Max's imaginary journey is more serious than the one in the book, with Max having to be physically restrained by his mother, whom he then bites. I would have liked to have seen the movie be just about a boy with an overactive imagination and less grown-up baggage, who is trying to work out more innocent angst. I think the book celebrates the "wild thing" inside every little boy, not the "acting out" of ignored children who desperately need love and attention. With this setting of dysfunction, the movie then takes on a 1970's afterschool special feel about children of divorce.

That being said, I really liked the conversations that Max has with the monsters. On the imaginary island, the two main monsters (Caroll (James Gandolfini) and K.W. (Lauren Ambrose)) obviously care for each other but are growing apart, and it's hard to know if they are meant to be Max's parents or Max and his sister, Claire. I like to think of them as Max and Claire, but maybe that's because I have a Luke and Carter.

All in all, I liked the movie, but I think it will resonate more with the parents that have read the book to their little wild things than to the wild things themselves!

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