I have to confess to nodding off during the mid section of Spike Jonze’s movie version of ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. If nothing else, this shows that the ‘monsters’ are in no way scary – with their runny noses and sad eyes they look every bit as vulnerable as the 9 year old kid.
Sure, when they tell Max he looks good enough to eat they initially seem to mean this literally, but, let’s face it, nutritionally this would be like feeding a dinosaur sausage on a stick.Max doesn’t look too threatened – with a tale of do-daring among Vikings he talks himself into being elected king.
This is a charming and intelligent movie, but the problem, and the reason for my impromptu nap, is that the slim plot caused a irresistible strain in my attention span. It’s too tall an order, even for a huge talent like Dave Eggers, to transform Maurice Sendak’s brief story into a full blown movie length screenplay.
What Eggers does succeed in doing, however, is presenting a convincing portrait of all the confusions of the world from the child’s perspective. In this respect, the movie should be essential viewing for child psychologists or anxious parents with concerns about dealing with tantrums. issues of anger management and building a child’s self esteem.
Max is a bright kid with a very active imagination – the stresser (as they would say on Criminal Minds) is his single Mom’s smooching with a male friend. It prompts him to don his wolf suit and make like a wild thing. Instead of being sent to bed supper-less he runs away and sails off to the land where other wild things are waiting.
There’s plenty to admire in the movie but I reckon it could be just as effective if it were 20 minutes shorter (although movie goers might feel short changed) . The soundtrack by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is excellent and the special effects are impressive. I also liked Jonze’s unconventional special effects shooting style – most of it looks like it was shot at dusk giving it a muted visual quality.
I’ll watch it again when it comes out on DVD – being in English (not dubbed in Italian) and in the comfort of my own home should at least mean I can stay awake!
One stroke of luck during my trip to the USA was that my visit coincided with the publication of Dave Eggers wonderful new non-fiction book ‘Zeitoun’. I snapped this up at Powell’s in Portland and it helped enormously to ease the boredom of long trips (and frequent delays) on Amtrak. 
