Nicholas Thurkettle

Where the Wild Things Are
Director: Spike Jonze
Writers: Screenplay by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, based on the book by Maurice Sendak
Producers: John B. Carls, Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, Vincent Landay, Maurice Sendak
Stars: Max Records, Catherine Keener, and featuring the vocal talents of James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michael Berry Jr., Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose

People don’t remember the urges of childhood. We ran and we screamed and we flailed and we wanted; we wanted so desperately. Why? What was the logic behind those times when we were unwise and unrestrained? It is a mystery we gloss over or ignore, yet matters so much to who we are.

And we can’t trust movies to get it right most of the time. Children in the majority of Hollywood product talk like little adults and betray an adult’s wide perspective. Most filmmakers forget – or just don’t want to face – how agonizing it could be when your world was the exact size of yourself and Mommy, and Mommy was busy.

Not so Spike Jonze’s film of Maurice Sendak’s childhood classic Where the Wild Things Are, which does right by its source material not simply by filming its story, but by translating its truths to the screen. This is a movie about our mighty and inchoate feelings, and how they inspire the bewildering actions that get us sent to our room without our supper. It is painful, and beautiful, and absolutely right.
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