Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak’s children’s book written in 1963, has entertained two generations and is starting out on a third. Though it consists mostly of illustrations -- the story contains only ten sentences -- it has already been made into a short film and an opera, and now director Spike Jonze has taken on the daunting task of turning this slight story with a big message into a feature-length film. The results are near disastrous -- it’s a film about children but not for them.

The plot of the book is simple. Max (played by Max Records) is a little boy who dons a wolf suit and misbehaves. He is sent to his room, where he imagines a land populated by friendly monsters that bear some semblance to earthly animals. They proclaim him king, and after some rumpus with them, he returns home to find his dinner still hot.

Jonze really gets inside the nine-year-old’s world during the opening 20 minutes, in which a handheld camera follows Max as he initiates a snowball fight that he ultimately loses and then lovingly captures the boy’s relationship with his mother (Catherine Keener). The scene hints that she is divorced and is seeing another man (Mark Ruffalo). After a rude outburst toward his mom, Max is sent to his room, and he sneaks out and sails to the land of the Wild Things. Jonze expertly captures the boy’s impetuous nature in this sequence, and we’re invited into Max’s reality. But Max’s boat soon arrives in the land of the Wild Things, and then we’re in trouble.

A combination of puppetry and CGI, the beasts look impressive, and adults who have read the book will smile knowingly the minute they appear. But they talk! And rather than speaking in Wild Beast voices, they talk like famous and not-so-famous actors, with James Gandolfini voicing Carol, the shaggy leader. They also carry on about adult problems, sounding like refugees from a Woody Allen film. And the only laughs come from situations in which childish cruelty rules the roost. They also lack ferocity. In expanding the story, Jonze has robbed it of both its danger and its charm. 

Filmed in brown, sepia-like tones (Sendak’s original drawings had more color), the most imaginative portion of the movie becomes a big, bloated bore. Occasional glimpses indicate that Jonze wanted this imaginary land to be much more than it turned out to be, but they don’t save the day, and there’s no magic here at all. Where are Sendak’s Wild Things? Out to lunch, I guess, because they aren’t to be found in this movie. If uninspired boredom is your idea of entertainment, go ahead and buy a ticket. But you might end up wishing you’d simply read the book again. Because it’s there that you’ll awaken your inner child -- that’s where the Wild Things are.

• Go Back