Where the Wild Things Are
Originally published at Ms. Amused. You can comment here or there.
So many people had “ehh” this movie to me that I lowered my expectations for seeing this.
I don’t remember the story of the book though I’m sure I read it as a kid.
I loved the actors, the visuals, the costumes and the skill of the actors inside the costumes for making the creatures seem real.
The story? Sucked. I’m told that it isn’t really the book’s story at all. But regardless, it’s very obvious from the beginning that the whole experience of Max with the creatures is really him experiencing his own home drama from a different perspective. He struggles to cope with Carol’s behaviour, not realizing til the end that Carol is like him.
The story’s dialogue and action just doesn’t fit well together once we’re into Max’s imagination. I presume that it was meant to appear from the perspective of a 10 yr old boy and how he would tell the story. But it doesn’t work for me so it was a rather painful movie to watch though I stuck it out to the end because I was enjoying the visuals of the puppet costumes and hoped that the story would somehow get better.
It didn’t.
Pluses in the movie for me, Catherine Keener is excellent as the single mom struggling to hold things together. Mark Ruffalo has a very small part that’s really a throwaway but I always like seeing him on the screen regardless. The kid who plays Max is also named Max and is going to be one to watch out for in the future.
I didn’t succeed in pegging the identity of the voice actors for the creatures, I was convinced that Alexander was Seth Green and it turned out to be Paul Dano (another actor worth watching). KW … I thought I detected Drew Barrymore’s distinctive voice but again it was Lauren Ambrose of Six Feet Under.
Recommendation: Rent or Borrow first because some people will end up loving it (or kids will). Buy it if you do. Worth watching even in part just to see the excellent work with the puppet costumes in a time when most movies rely on CGI instead.