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Where the Neurotic and Moody Things Are

The sincerest of apologies to two of my favorite literary and movie-making people–Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze–but I did not like Where the Wild Things Are.

Sadness.

Good things: the movie is shot beautifully.  Imaginary worlds and characters are fleshed out on screen (the fort was especially wonderful).  There are a few excellent moments when life-in-Max’s-imagination parallel Max’s life at home, showing that scenery never matters, if you’re dragging your sorry self along.  Change yourself; change your world.

But.

There is absolutely no story–nothing that pushes the story forward.  Twenty minutes into it, I wanted to leave.  I kept wondering when something was going to happen.  For all the critics who liked it and said that it got into the mind of a nine-year-old, I’m not sure many nine-year-old kids would want to sit in a movie theater, watching a movie that sounds like an adult therapy session, waiting patiently for the scenes (which drove this adult batty) such as: Let the rumpus begin!  Let’s build a fort!  Let’s have a dirt clod fight!  That’s the plot of the movie in a nutshell.

And for all Eggers’ and Jonze’s comments that they didn’t want to sugar-coat anything (which is fine by me), they made Max so rotten and unlovable (to me) that I really didn’t care what happened to him.

We knew a kid like that once–who stood up at the dinner table and threw his plate down in the midst of all of us.  He was sent up to his room, only to be invited down later, not to eat his meal, but to join us for dessert.  Some adults might say this is normal behavior.  It may be (at 2 years of age), but it’s behavior that has to be curbed…immediately.  [Max gets a big hunk of chocolate cake at the end.  Even after biting his mother, which is why he runs away, there are no apologies, no visible lessons learned.  It makes you wonder if he’ll continue being the rabble-rouser he’s always been, or if his journey has changed his perspective at all.  Not that every movie needs a moral or tidying up, but seriously, it’s gotta have something after you’ve watched a bratty kid for 94 minutes!]

And lest I be accused of losing my childlike take on things, I daresay the movie was more about what adults think about childhood, than what childhood is really like.  If that makes sense.

But there are other opinions.  Check out the Jezebel website here to browse other more sophisticated, big-gun reviews.  That may help you decide.

Although, I will say, in a very meek, tiny voice: I want my money back.

[Post image: Where the Wild Things Are movie still]

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