While Where the Wild Things Are was undoubtedly one of my favorite books as a child, I hadn't remembered a whole bunch about it before stepping into a screening of Spike Jonze's adaptation of the famous work. Apparently the wild things I've done as an adult were enough to make me forget Maurice Sendak's masterpiece almost altogether.

I remembered Max, the main character, being in a bit of hot water with his mother and being sent to bed without dinner and Max responding by drifting off to a magical land created by his innovative young mind. When I heard that Jonze was given the responsibility of bringing the book to the big screen, I thought it was a perfect match and when I heard that Dave Eggers was going to help with the screenplay, I was even more delighted. Neither Jonze or Eggers disappoints and I will even go as far to say that anyone who doesn't appreciate director Spike Jonze's latest near-masterpiece (also a good candidate for instant classic) for what it is is probably looking for too much.

The plot isn't even all that important. Especially if you do remember the book. And it's just not something that's hard to follow. This is that special brand of film that is all about feel. While the storyline isn't very layered or complex and the screenplay is pretty one-dimensional, it still works amazingly well, because it is still chock full of emotion and it looks as beautiful as it feels. There was even enough emotion to make me tear up on more than one occasion and to me, that makes any film an automatic winner.

To take a page out of Eggers' book (literally), you could even call the film version of Where the Wild Things Are a heartbreaking work of staggering simplicity. And I mean that in the best possible way. With Jonze's wild and vivid imagination, you might be expecting something a bit more out of left field, but I just don't see it. The film is most definitely surreal, but I would never dare call it abstract. It's too swift, classy, and fun. The closest we get to something "out there" is Max's animalistic tendencies that are enthusiastically displayed while he hunts down the family dog as if he was a canine himself and also the way he growls while play-fighting. This could have been a bit much if not kept to a minimum. Perhaps the most abstract part of the film happens before it even starts as we see scribblings of monsters over the production company labels that bombard us before each movie, but much like the film itself, it's all harmless fun.

Article Author: Jonathan Medina

Jonathan Medina is a screenwriter, songwriter and journalist specializing in music. He also enjoys writing about sports, films, television, food, life, love and loss.

He is currently writing Rock N' Roll Grad School - a book about how music changed his life.
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