Everything you have ever imagined

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November 18, 2009
Filed under Entertainment

“And now,” said Max, “let the wild rumpus start.”

This famous phrase has been repeated many a time from the lips of generations of parents and heard by the waiting ears of myriads of children as they are tucked into bed.

Although this famous scene has been alive in the imaginations of children since the book was published in 1963, it took Hollywood 46 years to bring it to the big screen.

Whenever a cherished work of pictorial literature is depicted on film, it seems to strip the magic from the true essence of the book. However, the cinematic rendering of Where the Wild Things Are accomplished a feat that I thought impossible: it improved on the original.

While the short children’s book by Maurice Sendak is applauded for its lush, imaginative illustrations, it is important to note that the character development fell flat. (To be fair, it is difficult to delve into the mind and dissect the personality of a five year old boy in a 20 page book with approximately that number of words on each one.)

So, when I heard that a movie studio was transforming it into a full-length movie, I was not expecting to learn a life lesson from an hour and a half in a dark room watching a poorly behaved boy declare his superiority over monsters.

Yet when I emerged from the theatre, the realization hit me that Max’s seemingly childish antics had taught me a great deal about my adolescent self.

Director Spike Jonze’s wildly imaginative interpretation of the book was unconventional and off-beat, but ultimately successful. His talent is recognizable in the way that he is able to change pieces of the plot while avoiding butchering the original sequence of events or the book’s text.

In order to stretch the terse picture book into a 95 minute movie, he had to decide how to reshape the story’s framework without changing it to its core. Instead of having the land of wild creatures arise from a forest in his bedroom with an ocean running through it, Jonze decides to have Max escape in a fit of fury to the banks of a nearby river where he finds a boat and bravely sets sail for great, rebellious adventures on distant, magical shores.

When he reaches the rugged, monster-inhabited island, Max is made king by the odd-looking creatures that reside there. At this point, the film begins to deviate greatly from the book.

Instead of placidly succumbing to Max’s authority, the monsters initially grumble and doubt the legitamacy of his rise to power. Another major disparity between the two versions is the dynamic relationship between the monsters and their king, something that is never mentioned in the book, yet which become one of the movie’s central focuses. The jumbled emotions of the unstable group of misfits that coexist on the island are meant to represent Max’s own feelings about life and family.

However, Jonze does not always make the symbolism work, which leads to seemingly random and unecessary outbursts of yelling, crying, fighting, and general misbehavior.

While Max is clearly tormented by the disintegration of his family due to divorce, the monsters seem to be vexed not only by relationship issues, but by bouts of uncontrollable insanity which create a dangerous environment. This causes Max to leave the island mostly out of fear, and not because of a new-found wisdom about the merits of family, a cause which the book hoped to promote.

Although the film had its rough patches, I think that it was a great interpretation of the classic children’s book. If you are craving a mental escape to the carefree, creative days of childhood, or simply want to reflect on the immense powers of youthful imagination, than this film provides the perfect solution.

With an open mind and a thirst for adventure, you are sure to be invigorated by a return to the mythical world that was born so many years ago out of the mind of Maurice Sendak, and will respond with a whoop when you hear of your king say “and now, let the wild rumpus start.”