Where the Wild Things Are

As a kid, my family frequented a cafe owned by family friends called Thinny Delites, where they served the world's best chicken and wild rice soup that I basically subsisted on. So when I discovered Maurice Sendak's book "Chicken Soup with Rice," it spoke to me. Immediately this became a favorite on my little kid bookshelf. The rhymes were endlessly amusing...."Fool me once. Fool me twice. Fool me chicken soup with rice."

Since Sendak clearly got me and my love of soup, I naturally should have taken to his blockbuster book "Where the Wild Things Are," but I thought it was a "boy book." Max, the protagonist, was a scrappy, scraggly, mischievous little boy who dressed up like a wolf, which to me was a "boy animal" (I was very susceptible to gender roles). It made no sense to me why Max would befriend big gross hairy monsters and made even less sense to me why he would want to be king of the big gross hairy monsters.

So when I heard about the movie, I was sceptical that such an iconic children's book could be expanded into a full-length feature film that wasn't cliche, farfetched, sentimental, and dumb. I also just wasn't really that interested (though I did like the preview because it featured an Arcade Fire song--FYI the song's not in the movie). My boyfriend really wanted to see it though so I begrudgingly went to a late showing on Friday night, which was packed with adults without a kid in sight, which was probably a good thing...the movie is freaking scary. The soundtrack, written and performed by the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs' Karen O, was haunting and perfect and, to my surprise, immediately captured my attention, and completely transported me into the world of the wild things. I left happily converted with a new respect for the book.

Visually the film was eerily true to Sendak's original illustrations, as the wild things, created by Jim Henson's studios, were rendered with incredibly precise detail. Conceptually, the story that was extrapolated from the ten-sentence book maintained and enhanced the integrity of the original story and did not shy away from its dark nature. Sendak is a creepily dark guy, obsessed with death and tormented by an awful relationship with his parents. His art simply takes the form of children's books by default and not out of a purposeful passion for enlightening and entertaining children. The film understands this, exposing the raw, authentic emotions and struggles that underscore the simple story, becoming a portrait of Sendak and his reflections on childhood and the realization that parents are human and family is complicated.