Max [Max Records] lives with his single mother, Mom [Catherine Keener], and has some rage and anger issues.  After one evening where he is feeling ignored by his mother he runs away from home and on a journey to a far away land where he finds wild creatures and becomes their king.

Spike Jonze is one of the most interesting directors of this (what I like to call) new age of cinema.  He began as a music video director and his first feature length film was released in 1999, Being John Malkovich, and it cemented him in my mind as one those few directors (like Michel Gondry) who has a certain style to the way he likes to tell stories.  Even in a film like Adaptation, which was released in 2002, which didn’t have such a fantastical premise like his other films he still somehow was able to put his imagination on screen that made the film more than what you’d expect and kept you wanting to see it over and over to look for more and more details that you missed before.

Where the Wild Things Are is no different.  It isn’t a film that will scare you but the idea may put you in an odd place to begin with.  In this psychotropic era where all of our children are dealing with so many emotions and issues and not sure how express themselves and having to be in therapy or whatnot Max won’t exactly seem that out of the ordinary.  Every child begs for attention and gets sad and even mad when he is hurt even when we (as adults) can see it was an inevitable end to what he started.

The film takes this character on a journey that feels somewhat dated.  I don’t mean dated in the sense that you can’t relate but the type of film is something that isn’t done anymore.  It feels like a movie that would’ve been made in the mid-80s (like Labyrinth) and would be one of those beloved films that I would’ve not liked that much as a child and come to love as I grew up.  Seeing it for the first time (along with the rest of the world) as an adult is quite odd for that reason.  At the same time I’m happy that I’m seeing it now and not as a five-year-old, because I can appreciate it and admit how much I love it.  This movie was a joy to watch on screen and gorgeous.  Seeing that Spike Jonze was able to seamlessly integrate the puppetry used for the wild things’ huge suits and along with their (obviously) digitally animated faces was earth shattering as far as I’m concerned and with Max becoming a part of this world, without it looking anyway superimposed, added to this fully imagined world that we were experiencing.

The story was great not because of the narrative plot points it hit as it moved along but more for the emotional plot points.  As we say Max enter the world with an act of violent rage and then begin to go to his stories to trick them into making him their king we are immersed into this scenario wondering where it will take us and what all of these monsters mean to Max.  Is it just a land where “everything you want to happen can” or some introverted way of Max to deal with his own issues?  Somehow I believe that it’s a mixture of both.

The funny thing is that initially we are frightened by the creatures as they threaten to eat Max but eventually we learn to love them and are introduced to them all, but it is always in the back of our minds that these things aren’t always loveable and can easily become complete monsters again anytime.  Somehow I wanted to say that each of the wild things represented a particular emotion that Max has trouble dealing with, whether it be his anger, loneliness, sense of rejection, need for attention as well as others.  However, I feel almost like I want to see the movie again to peg down which wild thing matches with which feeling that Max is going through.

Looking back even though I love every part of this film my favourite moment for some odd reason has to be before he runs away.  The scene when Max acts out in front of his mother and her gentleman caller, played by Mark Ruffalo, and puts on his wolf outfit and jumps up on the table top it is somewhat both completely correct in context and at the same time so jarring for an audience member who (like myself) may wonder how the hell Max got to this point mentally where he thought this was an okay way to react to this situation.  Scene to scene this film is beautiful and brilliant and I love it because it makes you feel for Max even though he is wrong for reacting the way he does.

I guess by now you can tell that I loved this movie and I highly recommend it for anyone who saw this trailer and threw their hands up in the air at the fact that it had wild things, Max in a wolf outfit or that Spike Jonze directed it.  I don’t expect this movie to be loved by all but this is definitely one of my favourite movies of 2009 and in my eyes perfect from top to bottom.  So let the wild rumpus begin.

IMDB says 7.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 73%

I say 10/10