WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Written by Spike Jonze and David Eggers
Directed by Spike Jonze
Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo
Voices by James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose


Judith: Happiness isn’t always the best way to become happy.

It’s been a fair amount of time since I was a young boy. Fortunately for me, it has not been so long that I have grown past the age where I can get completely lost in the wonderful world of Spike Jonze’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Jonze must have had to fight his own wild beasts during his lengthy and tumultuous journey to bring the 1963 Maurice Sendak classic picturebook to such exquisite life. Originally due to be released in the spring of 2008, Jonze had to fight the studio to make the film he wanted and believed in when it was being criticized for being too dark a work to be considered a family film. A year and a half later, Jonze has made a film that both parties are happy with and, while it still may be too dark to play to the littler ones, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is a modern family classic in every possible sense.


In the original Sendak tale, Max (played here by the precocious boy with the power name, Max Records) is sent to bed without supper for being bad. From there, he escapes to another world complete with a monster community that he incorporates himself into quite nicely. When his adventures are over, he returns home to find a plate of food waiting for him by his bed. At under 500 words, it’s pretty sparse but Jonze, alongside AWAY WE GO co-writer and novelist, David Eggers, has transformed WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE into a contemporary exploration of how a child might deal with the changing face of his family and finding a way to fit in it. Max’s Mom (Catherine Keener) still sends him to bed without supper for acting up but his wild outburst now has context and his adventure offers a healing that stretches past the troubled boy to touch the inner child of anyone watching.


The wild things themselves are mostly giant, furry monsters and precisely where Max stumbles upon them is never pinpointed but, once he gets there, he declares himself king and rightfully so. After all, this place is essentially inside his head and even with the wild things running, well, wild in there, he is still aware enough to know that he is in charge of all these extensions of his own personality. Max’s family issues are mirrored in Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), a monster with his own difficulties keeping his rage in check. Whether the monsters and Max are trying to build a perfect living space or whether they are just pouncing on top of each other in one big giant pile, they are doing things together and the conversations that take place in between are simple musings, not unlike those that Max might have with himself in his mind. Never do Max’s two worlds resolve each other perfectly but nor could one live without the other.


WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is simply unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The screenplay is elegant and uncomplicated; its ferocious beauty is matched only by the magnificence of its aesthetic. With the help of two-time collaborator and handheld guru, Lance Acord, Jonze creates a world that is at times tender and warm while at others, frightening and fragile. Who would ever expect a family film to be so visceral, let alone so disarming? Learning to accept your family, or even life, as it is can be difficult at any age but leaning into it brings security and tames the wildness of the mind. Perhaps we all could stand to learn a lesson from Max and get a little wild when needed instead of always quieting what needs to get out. While WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE may be lost on the truly young, it will not be lost on the young at heart.

AWAY WE GO

Written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida
Directed by Sam Mendes
Starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph


Burt Farlander: I had a dream about Montreal last week.
Verona De Tessant: Was I topless in it?
Burt Farlander: Yes.

From the moment you see this dilapidated shack of a house, you think how could anyone live here? There is a light on inside so someone must live there. Who could possibly though? It looks as though it could fall in on itself at any moment. And then you see the inside. There is a tool and workstation in the bedroom! What hapless losers call this dump home? Well, that would be Burt Farlander and Verona De Tessant (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) and when you meet them, you realize instantly that they deserve so much better. They’re good people who are trying to find their place who haven’t realized yet that they don’t have to stay in one place to find it. They are also just now, both in their early 30’s, waking up to the reality of their adult life and seeing that they’ve got a lot more work to do than they thought. And so away they go in search of a real home in Sam Mendes’s AWAY WE GO.


It might have been the decrepit yet necessary space heater in the living room or the cardboard box that was doubling as a window in the kitchen but it was a lot more likely that it was Verona’s unexpected pregnancy that tipped the couple off. There comes a point in time in our lives when we can no longer just get by on our youthful charms, when we must take specific action to fashion our lives into something we can grow into security or a legacy. That time is now for Burt and Verona. After Burt’s parents (Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels) inform the twosome that they are moving to Belgium for two years, they realize that there is no reason for them to continue living in Colorado as they were only doing so to be close to his parents. All too often, we resign ourselves to what we know and avoid venturing past our safety zones out of fear of the unknown or because of just plain complacency but Burt and Verona have just realized that there is nothing remotely safe about their particular zone. Worse yet, it isn’t home.


This charming road trip film is winning and touching despite its formulaic trappings. After leaving Colorado, Burt and Verona go to Phoenix, Madison and Miami. They even make their way north of the border to Montreal. At each spot, they visit with friends and family in hopes of feeling a connection that might make them want to move there. The premise is inherently episodic as each of these people they meet with has children already and they each have different approaches to proper parenting. There is always something to learn and Mendes does nothing to mask the transparency of their journey. What he does is allow seasoned character actors like O’Hara and Daniels, or Maggie Gyllenhaal, Alison Janney and Chris Messina to bring sincerity and depth to what would otherwise be hollow shells. And with the unavoidably likable Krasinski and the refreshingly honest Rudolph taking us on this ride, even long lulls on the road pass by like a breeze.


AWAY WE GO is the kind of film that makes me wish I had someone to get out there and look for a home with. Burt and Verona are something of a dying breed today. The love they have for each other is deep but practical and at no point in time does either take for granted that they will make it through to the other side without having to do a little work to get there. They also don’t take it all so seriously so as much as they work, they play just as hard. The way in which they play is what gives AWAY WE GO a warmth that I’ve only known from one place before … home.