Stars: XX1/2 out of IX

Spike Jonze’s rendition of William Steig’s sweetly bizarre bedtime story, Where the Wild Things Are, is inconsistent. This movie is, at times, both cute and annoying, depressing and spacey, deeply funny and disturbingly violent.

Based on Maurice Sendak’s classic and chic children’s novel, Where the Wild Things Are is the story of Max (Max Records), a rascally young boy who is sent to bed without his supper—and left to fill himself with the conjurations of his imagination. Max is thrust into a beastly and forested realm, finding himself in a land where the wild things are.

Wild Things presents an imperfect boy and his strange story with no superfluous explanation or direction; I was able to interpret it for myself and allowed to find connections between the film and my own childhood and imagination. The film explores themes sometimes avoided by films within this demographic—some of them universally acknowledged and sweetly nostalgic, some more deeply buried, and—most focally—the disturbing fascination with violence which is innate in all of us. It treks through the full spectrum of human emotion from rambunctious elation to loneliness and despair.

Max Records is especially endearing. He feels like a real little kid and not a well-trained child-actor, for which credit is due to both Jonze and Records. His sentences trail off into nothing at the ends; when he wants something, his voice wanders into whiny and high-pitched territory, and his humorous appeal is based on innocent honesty and not on precocious wit. At an age when egotism starts to face some tough competition from socialization, it is interesting to see the tension between emerging accountability and childish logic.

The movie’s subtle details provide a solid backdrop for the film’s quirkiness  —the close-up shots of the magnificently animated faces of Max’s imaginary friends, the moments devoted to silent expression, and the pithy comments on human nature dropped into a stream of rambling, childish dialogue.

Despite its childhood appeal, the movie does not make exhaustive attempts to make the viewer feel warm and fuzzy—which makes it stand out from many of its contemporaries. Films in this demographic, which tend to be aimed at child and their animation tastes, often try to incorporate adult themes with varying degrees of subtlety, but too frequently they feel compelled to resolve to a satisfying conclusion and humdrum moral message.

There is a certain roughness to the aesthetic quality of the film, which I feel was appropriate in doses but given a little too much screen time, often leading to a deflating effect and periods of pointlessness and low-interest which contribute heavily to its fluctuating appeal.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this movie’s peculiar humor and eccentric style. The cinematography sparkles, the acting is convincing, and that filthy little cat outfit is absolutely adorable.