Where the Wild Things Are – DVD Review

Film, Reviews, Top Story



In our hurried grown up lives, it’s difficult to remember what it was like to be a kid. Typically we look back on our younger years with fondness, reminiscing about playtime, best friends, and made-up games. We forget too often how difficult it is emotionally, to not understand the world around you, to not know how to express the range of emotions welling up inside you. When our children react with great energy or anger, it is typical of today’s society to brand that child as ADHD or some other medical term, in attempt to make the child more “normal”. We forget that acting out is sometimes considered normal, that our children are wild things.

In Spike Jonze’s big screen adaptation of the much beloved classic children’s picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, he takes many liberties to expand the few sentences of the book into a full length film. Instead of only “making mischief of one kind and another,” Max (Max Records) has serious reason to act out. His mother (Catherine Keener) has begun seeing a new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo), and it is obvious by his actions that Max needs a father figure. Max’s older sister is too busy hanging out with her friends to play with him in the snow so he plays by himself. In a particularly heartbreaking scene, one of his sister’s friends crushes his carefully made snow fort by jumping on top of it, with Max inside. Max acts out one night by wearing his wolf suit and screaming insults at his mother.

Hurt and confused, he runs out of the house “and an ocean tumbles by with a private boat for Max, and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are.” In the book, the wild things are pretty frightening looking. They tower over Max and have various horns, hoofs, and claws. In the movie, they are just the same. They threaten to eat Max up, until Max proves that he can be scary and becomes the king of all wild things. The Wild Things of the movie mirror the characters of Max’s real life. Carol (James Gandolfini) is Max, wild and unruly and unsure of himself. KW (Lauren Ambrose) is Max’s sister, who is trying to find herself in other ways and finds her friends more interesting than her family. Judith (Catherine O’Hara) is a pessimistic leader who is also unsure of what she needs to do. Alexander (Paul Dano) represents another side of Max, the lonely, scared side.

Carol and Max have the best chemistry, and some of the best scenes occur when the two are discovering and talking. KW though has some very tender scenes with Max, and it is obvious in talking with her that Max looks up to his big sister greatly. But as tender as Jonze treats childhood, the film is not completely perfect. As a film experience, it can seem a bit unresolved. There is really no climax, no typical storyline. Max simply goes to the wild things, experiences things, builds things, then goes home. He doesn’t even really go on a journey that ends with him figuring things out. Like any kid, he just knows that he misses his family and wants to go home. Jonze has succeeded in every way with his adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. He kept it simple, honest, and has captured a part of childhood that most grown-ups don’t remember, or don’t want to remember.

The movie is presented in a beautiful 2.40:1 aspect ratio. The colors of this film are very muted, but they lend a very surreal feel to this fanciful film. Although the score is wonderful, provided by Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, most of the sounds in the film are raw – trees breaking, screams, yells – and the audio track is just as perfect as it was in its theatrical release.

There are no boring extras here. In keeping with the child-friendly movie, this DVD only includes child-friendly extras.

The Absurd Difficulty of Filming a Dog Running and Barking At the Same Time – This featurette documents exactly that. In the scene where Max runs down the street in his wolf suit and barking at a dog, what you don’t see on film is the terrible struggle the dog trainer had to go through to get the dog to run and bark at the same time. Very cute. (5:32)

The Big Prank – I’m a bit at a loss to why this prank was so big, perhaps it’s one of those “you had to be there” things. (3:23)

Vampire Attack – A short in which Max wanders through a foggy cemetery and Spike Jonze “attacks” him while wearing very big plastic vampire teeth. (0:51)

The Kids Take Over The Picture – In order to create an atmosphere of play and to keep children the focus of the project, the cast and crew’s children had an open invitation to the set. They’re throwing balls around, playing with the scenery, and the costume department made every one of them their very own wolf suit. Awesome! (4:57)

Trailers IMAX Under the Sea, Where the Wild Things Are: The Videogame, Free Willy: Escape From Pirate’s Cove, The Blind Side, Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest (videogame), Scooby Doo: Abracadabra Doo

Where the Wild Things Are has been a very polarizing film. Many critics have lambasted it for its slow pacing and creepy characters. What they have failed to comprehend is that children don’t always need talking CGI animals to relate to a character. Max, in all his imperfections, is the embodiment of childhood. I have a 9-year-old son who is a wild thing, and when asked if he could relate to Max, just looked down contemplating and said, “yeah.” That only solidified what I already thought, Where the Wild Things Are is not only one of the favorite books, but has become one of the favorite movies in our house.


Warner Home Video presents Where the Wild Things Are. Directed by: Spike Jonze. Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini. Written by: Spike Jonze, Dave Eggers. Running time: 101 minutes. Rating: PG. Released on DVD: March 2, 2010. Available at Amazon.com.

Jenny is proud to be the First Lady of Inside Pulse Movies. She gives female and mommy perspective, and has two kids who help with rating family movies. (If they don't like 'em, what's the point?) She prefers horror movies to chick flicks, and she can easily hang with the guys as long as there are several frou-frou girlie drinks to be had.