Country:
USA/Germany
Recognizable Faces:
Catherine Keener
Mark Ruffalo
... and the voices of:
James Gandolfini
Forrest Whitaker
Directed by:
Spike Jonze
The index of AT is like the word of God for Josie and I when it's time to rent a movie. When he points a DVD on the shelf and says: "Oh, I liked this one", it's a one way ticket for a worthy rental. Another token of quality is the name of Spike Jonze, who brought us countless amazing music videos and movies like Being John Malkovich and Adaptation (also known as the only movie where Nicholas Cage doesn't run around with a dark trench coat and a mag lite).
So here I was, blindly throwing myself into another movie...
STORYTELLING
Max (Max Records) is your oh-so-lovable little out-of-control brat with an overflowing imagination. He builds forts, pester his sisters multiple boyfriends and take greater vengeance whenever being put against adversity. What separate Max from your pastel-shirt-family movie is that he's lonely. His parents are divorced and his mother is struggling to get by. Unlike your typical Hollywood flick, you can feel here that Max's family is doomed and that his adorable mom (Catherine Keener) is trying to scramble to get back to her feet.
On a boyfriend night, Max reaches his breaking point, bites his mother and takes a run to the end of the world (the nearby woods) where he can destroy things and scream his anger to the top of his lungs. Here, the movie takes a heavy symbolic turn as Max embarks a ship to the other side of an imaginary ocean to an island where twelve foot tall monsters live. Unlike the Na'vy, these monsters do not live in harmony with nature. The small community struggles with Carol (Gandolfini) a destructive monster that takes joy into the attention his rampages get him.
The arrival of Max on the island will change the life of the monsters, who will follow him as he pretends to be their king. Max will have to assume responsibilities he's not ready for and will have a chance to look at the lives of his imaginary friends from an outsider point of view. As the foreigner king of his inner world.
DIRECTION
Spike Jonze's trademark style of highly visual scenes and innocent but symbolic playfulness are present here. A fine touch I liked is that the creatures of Max's mind express themselves with the confused speech of a young children. They are creation of his mind and you never feel that Max is completely out of control of his inner self.
A disappointment was the streamlined trip Max is taking on the road to his inner island. Things are clear cut in an Hollywoodian fashion, so you know Max is crossing the river of his mind. The only doubt that Jonze is keeping is as what Max is really doing while on the island. That is not very well handled by Jonze, who's an expert at explaining symbols to his viewership.
ACTING
Catherine Keener and Max Records are a cutie pie of a mother-son relationship. Keener particularly has a touch of realism to the slow thud of her despair. She's simple and touching. Mark Ruffalo has a small role, but he finds a way to be annoying as a sticky, horny boyfriend.
As for the voices, James Gandolfini makes a tremendous impression as Carol-The-Destructive-Passionate. He's a natural fit for voice acting and expect him to see him in more of those. Paul Dano, Forrest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara, Lauren Ambrose and the rest of the crew are all forgettable. They disappear behind their suited counterparts well, but they don't forge a personality of their own.
INTEREST
It's one of the best movies about the inner-self of a child. Watching Where The Wild Things Are is like being in a car driven by a child or having your mind going adrift before going to bed. It has an enthralling quality that I can't quite name. It's not quite Tarsem Singh's The Fall, but it's a valiant effort into picturing what we all forgot
SCORE: B+
