Where the Wild Things Are finally gives “bowdlerize” its long searched-for binary: “Eggersize” (’cause it’s so much Bigger and Emotional!). I’m a little taken aback by the lurid melodrama here, which avoids being totally embarrassing because it’s so languid. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the right tone for the material, but here we have an art film sewn into the haunches of a Major Motion Picture (did they re-release the book with a “Now a Major Motion Picture” emblem, or was that honor bestowed only upon Eggers’ novelization?). And what’s problematic with that is Mythology, and it’s precisely what Eggers brings to the table. Except it’s not at all conveyed apart from everyone’s sad (I bet the screenplay has salty language in it, e.g.,: Carol is fucking sad in this scene.) and you get these mise-en-scene moments where it just fits the bill and slots in to give an impression, but there’s no rules to the emotion, there’s nothing tethering the emotion so it runs ram shod.
Evidence the control of the original text: terrible eyes, terrible teeth, terrible everything gnashing this and that and yet it’s playful and imaginative, an escape thoroughly within the guise of Max’s experience. The monsters don’t even look sad, and the saddest Max gets is boredom. Aren’t these more interesting than the rote childhood-sucks motif? It’s probably true that a temper tantrum can’t sustain a whole movie (especially one as long as this one), but do we really have to get so bent out of shape about it? How much of the yard stick are we willing to give up until we ask why?
They don't look so sad.
Witness the Eggersized moments of confusion and childhood despair: Carol tells him to destroy the house while all the other Things watch on, and then when he does it, they get all bent out of shape. Max stepping on KW’s head seemed particularly straight out of a “This American Life” vignette and may as well have been scored to Yann Tiersen’s La Valse D’Amelie. And then there’s the music that’s actually in the movie: it is beyond cloying and desperate, so tamped down and tinkly and seems in place purely to drive the film further into its indie roots. This Songwriter Present motif worked really well on Into the Wild and sure, maybe even There’s Something About Mary but here I found it entirely too present and distracting. Only a Philip Glass soundtrack could have been more misplaced and Less Intentional.
It’s also telling that instead of taming “wild things” (what Max called himself in the book), he’s stepping into a role that other boys have previously sunk their teeth into. But don’t the metaphors stop working when Max is stepping into a pre-existing mythology? The book is magical because it is so simple: the boy finds fantastical monsters akin to the rebellion and resentment he feels, and he tames them only to try and exact a parent’s control over his new play toys. This bores him, and he’s hungry after all. So wouldn’t it be easier to just go home?
So enough about what annoyed me – the monsters looked great. Here’s technology that doesn’t get in the way of what’s happening. The combination of giant muppets and computer animated crying really helped convince you that something was actually there, taking up space. It makes everything around it seem more tangible. And despite the depressive nature of every one, the voice actors really helped give these things a lot of character. Particularly James Gandolfini, who has a childlike curiousity in his voice, even when tempestuous. Ultimately, a movie that never really rises above an experiment where a writer and a director decide to see if they can turn a 10 page children’s story into a movie.
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