As a child I grew up loving the slightly disturbing children’s books of the great Maurice Sendak, my favorite being IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN followed by WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. And I love the insane films of Spike Jones, so I was really excited for this, and even more so after seeing the amazing trailers with the Arcade Fire soundtracks and the fact that the wild things were done by Jim Henson studios (at least for the bodies, with digital faces). I was so excited to go into the World of the Wild things, the world of Wild Little Children, and I did enjoy the film, but I must say it is a bit too melancholy for my tastes. I loved it, but came out a tad depressed. Now I think it has a great message, but I think the melancholy may make this film too much for most children, and bring down the childhood memory a bit. Now I like the fact that it is at times scary, but the sadness brings it down, and while it does make the message that much more powerful, I felt there should have been a bit more of the childlike wonder and less of the sadness brought by anger and lashing out at ones family without thinking. Still I did greatly enjoy the film, and the Wild Things were fantastic, which makes me want to see ti again, and again soon. The other complaint is the child seems a little old to be dressing up like he did, but he did do a great job in his role, so I can forgive that. One complaint is the constant handheld shaky cam, which Spike Jones seems to favor, made my wife sick. Sure it made the computer harder to do, and made it more chaotic, but I do wish that more filmmakers would invest in a few steadicams, as I find gently moving images much more enjoyable. Overall this is an enjoyable, though slightly sad film, which is too much for most children, and a bit melancholy for the remembrance of the fans who loved the fun of the book, and did not find it so sad as a child. This could have been perfect, but instead is a worthy try, that is quite enjoyable, but still slightly missing something.

Max (Max Records) is a child living with his older sister Claire (Pepita Emmerichs) and his single mom Connie (Catherine Keener). Max has some anger issues, some stemming from his father being gone (it is never explained why), and he lives in his own little world. He plays outside in the snow, making his own snow fort in a pile of snow left by a snow plow, and tries to get Claire to come and see, but she ignores him. When her friends come to pick her up, he starts a snowball fight, but it gets out of hand and Claire’s friends gang up on him, and jump on and crumble his snow fort with him in. Max starts crying, and Claire ignores him, and goes with her friends, so he freaks out and goes into her room, trampling the whole room in snow, and smashing everything he ever gave her, then realizing he has done wrong, going and cowering in bed. When Connie returns, he shows her what she did, and they clean up the room, using towels to sop up the soaking wet carpet. That night Connie has her boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) over for dinner, and Max dresses in his animal outfit, and because he is not getting attention, freaks out, screaming at the top of his lungs, and ends up biting Connie, when she yells at him, saying, “what is wrong with you?” Max freaks out and runs out of the house, evading his mom, and finding an abandoned sail boat which he gets into, and sails out to sea, much like he played with a little boat in his blue sheeted bed. Max realizes he can no longer see the shore. Eventually he sees an island, and in the darkening sky he sees some lights and heads for it, barely making it to the rocky shore, and dragging the boat in with him. Max climbs perilous rocks, and goes into the woods towards the light, and gets his first glimpse of the giant wild things.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

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Max witnesses a strange sight around a campfire, with giant wild things, and one is throwing a fit and destroying round balls of hay. This is Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini who is amazing, though so so sad, and performed by Vincent Crowley), who if freaking out because someone called KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose and performed by Alice Parkson and Garon Michael) has left, and she would want it this way, and Max immediately gets it, and starts attacking the balls too, to the horror of the other wild things, which are Ira (voiced by Forest Whitaker and performed by Sam Longley) the whole maker, his girlfriend the one who always sees the dark side Judith (voiced by Catherine O’Hara and performed by Nick Farnell), Carol’s best friend the birdlike Douglas (voiced by Chris Cooper and performed by John Leary), the never listened too Alex (voiced by Paul Dano, and performed by Sonny Gerasimowicz) and the quiet Bull (voiced by Michael Berry Jr. and performed by Angus Sampson and Mark McCracken). Judith wants to eat Max, but thinking fast, he convinces them he is a king from another land with magic powers who defeated vikings in the past, and can make them all happy. They decide he should be king, much to the depressive Carol’s delight, and pull a crown and scepter from a pile of skeletons of former kings, and declare Max King. He immediately calls for a Wild Rumpuss, and they all dance and destroy the forrest with claws and fists,

KW ends up returning from her sojourn with her other friends, and quickly it is apparent that Carol loves her, but can’t manage to do anything about it, and KW won’t admit if she is back for good, but she does get in a big pig pile, where they all sleep.

Carol ends up taking Max through the dessert to a cave where he has made a huge miniature of his ideal world, the world he wants, and what he wants Max as Kind to make, which includes having KW with him always, and Max wants to help and says he will, though he really doesn’t know what to do.

Max gets the Wild Things to build a huge fort, where they will all live together, and he designs it, and puts Carol in charge of making it, and they set to work making this huge ball fortress, with all using their skills, though it quickly becomes obvious that Max favors Carol, which the others don’t like.

KW ends up taking Max for a walk to the beach, where she picks up rocks, and quickly throws them, taking down 2 owls, and picking them up, and claiming they are her new friends Bob and Terry. KW talks to them, and even ask questions to them for Max, but all he hears are them squawking. KW decides to take them back to the fort.

Carol is enraged, not being able to handle KW and her new friends, and he freaks out, getting angry at Max for ruining everything. Carol runs off, and Max goes to talk to him, admitting that he too, like Carol can only hear squawks from the Owls.

Max decides to stage a war, with dirt clods, splitting the Wild Things into Good and Bad, and causing further dissension, and even getting Alex physically hurt, and causing Carol to storm angry again.

Eventually the truth comes out that Max is not in fact a king, and the wild things tellingly say that he is just like them (angry little kids that did not learn to deal with their lives, and their anger). Carol starts to freak out, even ripping Douglas’s arm off, and causing KW to decide to leave again, because she can’t take Carol’s tantrums.

Max finally understands why his mother was so angry at him, and why he has to learn to control himself, and he decides it is time for him to leave and return to his mother. Carol is not there, but he finds a small heart that Max left him with a C in it, and runs to try and say goodbye, but Max is sailing away, and Carol runs into the water, waving, and they all howl at him goodbye.

Max returns to land, and runs back home, seemingly the same night, and finds his worried mom having passed out at the table. She hugs him, and he eats cake, and looks at her son that she loves.

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A good though sad movie, with a great message to learn about controlling ones anger and that you must think about your family, but a bit much for kids, and as I said, probably a bit too melencholy to really do anything big. It could have been more accessible for sure.