I went to see Where the Wild Things Are after work today, and I loved it. It felt like childhood, like all the moments I remember. All the feelings you can’t express, all the things you say, all the hope and joy. The scary things you begin to learn about the big, terrifying world. The fun of just playing. Wishing you were older and could be in charge. Wishing the world went your way. The quirkiness of kid imagination. All of it. More than any movie I think I’ve ever seen, this one didn’t just show childhood. It embodied it. The dark and the light.
Tag: maurice sendak
So, for a while now rumors have been plaguing Spike Jonze’s film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, a children’s book beloved by me and countless others for years and years. The idea of adapting this mischievous, dark, and wonderful book is a little daft to begin with, and it sounds like it’s been no easy task. Filmed in 2006, it started making the rounds to test audiences last winter. First I read that no one liked the boy cast as Max (too mean-spirited and unlikeable). Then I read that children in a December screening actually left the theater crying and terrified. I also read that the actual Wild Things were giving the F/X crews serious problems. Then in June it was confirmed that Jonze was spending the month reshooting a significant amount of the film. The release date’s been pushed back from fall of this year to fall of 2009. A few weeks ago the LA Times published this article giving a full account of the movie’s troubled history and where it currently stands. I hope they can pull it all together. It has the potential to be an amazing film, but I worry about too much interference from a marketing department looking for a huggable kids’ holiday movie.