Saturday Night At The Movies
Wild child, full of grace
By Dennis Hartley
Pathos, on a cliff by the sea: Where the Wild Things Are
Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
and we’d play
-from “Shiloh” by Neil Diamond
Childhood is a magical time. Well, at least until the Death of Innocence…whenever that is supposed to occur. So at what point DO we slam the window on Peter Pan’s fingers? When we stop believing in faeries? That seems to be the general consensus, in literature and in film. In Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire
Director Spike Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggars both get their Inner Child on in a big way in Where the Wild Things Are, a bold and wildly imaginative film adaptation of the classic children’s book by Maurice Sendak. Blending live action with expressive CGI/Muppet creations, the filmmakers construct a child’s inner fantasy world that lives and breathes, while avoiding the mawkishness that has been the ruin of many a children’s film. In actuality, this arguably may not qualify as such in the strictest sense; perhaps no more so than Lord of the Flies
Young Max (Max Records) lives with his mother (Catherine Keener) and teenaged sister Claire (Pepita Emmerichs) in suburbia. Max is a modern poster child for Ritalin; he’s the type of kid who, before the days of ADHD over-diagnosis, would likely have been described as having a “rambunctious” nature and in possession of an “overactive imagination” (one could even describe him as a selfish little brat). At any rate, we’ll just say that he definitely has some anger management issues stemming from (among other things) feelings of abandonment by his father (whether this situation was precipitated by death or divorce isn’t made quite clear, unless I overlooked something obvious). He appears to have a loving relationship with his mom, but her job pressures, along with the additional stresses of single parenthood are obviously putting the damper on their quality time together. His sister is too sidetracked by the social whirlwind of her burgeoning adolescence to take interest in bonding with Kid Brother, and he isn’t shown to have any real peers to hang out with. In short, Max is a textbook example of the Lonely Little Boy.
One evening, his mother’s boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) comes for a visit, which precipitates a particularly unseemly episode of “acting out” on Max’s part. A defiant standoff with his exasperated mom culminates with Max physically attacking her. Surprised and confused by the veracity of his own behavior, an extremely spooked Max runs off into the night to wrestle with his demons. Somewhere in the course of this long dark night of his 9 year-old soul, in the midst of a panicky attempt to literally flee from his own shameful actions, Max crosses over from Reality into Fantasy (sometimes, even children need to bleed the valve a bit on the “pressure cooker of life”). This pivotal transition is handled beautifully and subtly by the filmmakers (it reminded me a lot of the unexpectedly lyrical and fable-like interlude in Charles Laughton’s otherwise foreboding noir thriller, The Night of the Hunter
Max washes up on the shore of a mysterious island where he finds that he suddenly has the ability to not only wrestle with his inner demons, but run and jump and laugh and play with them as well. These strange and wondrous manifestations are the literal embodiment of the “wild things” inside of him that drive his complex emotional behaviors; anthropomorphic creatures that also pull double duty as avatars for the people who are closest to him. At first, the beasts are reflexively territorial, threatening to serve him up for dinner if he doesn’t prove his mettle; Max is quick enough on his feet to figure out that he is going to have to make up in clever invention (his specialty, luckily) for what he lacks in physical size in order to keep himself out of the soup kettle. Somehow he convinces them that he is not only worthy of their trust, but is an excellent candidate to become their “king” as well (I’m no psych major, but if your emotions threaten to consume you, the only effective way to conquer them is to take control of them, right?)
Max forges an instant bond with the fearsome yet benign Carol (James Gandolfini) who serves as both father figure and soul mate (he also thinks it’s a hoot to rage and howl and break shit to blow off steam). Inversely, Max also is drawn to the calming countenance of the laid-back KW (Lauren Ambrose), who is a morph of a maternal/big sister confidant. It is intimated that KW and Carol are weathering a rocky period in a long-running personal relationship (I don’t need to spell out the significance of that). All the voiceover actors do a commendable job of infusing some genuine heart into the various creature personalities (Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper and Catherine O’Hara are on board as well). The episodic nature of the film’s structure may be trying for some; on the other hand, one must consider that such leaps of faith in logic are, after all, the stuff dreams are made of.
That Jonze and Eggars were able to wring this much compelling narrative and fleshed out back stories from what was essentially a child’s picture book with minimal text and virtually no exposition, and execute it all with such inventive visual flair (lovely work from DP Lance Acord), is quite an amazing accomplishment. In a way, Jonze was the perfect director for this project. His two previous feature films (both collaborations with the iconoclastic Charlie Kaufman, known for writing densely complex, virtually un-filmable screenplays) were expert cinematic invocations of journeys into “inner space”. In Being John Malkovich
Through the looking glass: Dreamchild 
Previous posts with related themes:
Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea
Pan’s Labyrinth
…and speaking of “retaining the mondo bozo”:
RIP Soupy Sales: 1926-2009
So long, Soupy-the most wonderfully subversive children’s show host of all time.
He helped make me the silly manchild I am today. May he rest in pies.
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