The day after I found out my wife was expecting our first child I went
out at lunch to a book store and bought a copy of 'Where the Wild
Things Are' by Maurice Sendak. While I was in the store I noticed that
they had stuffed versions of some of characters from the book. I got a
stuffed Max and a stuffed Bison Wild Thing for what turned out to be
my oldest son. I read that book to each of my children and used a
scary voice when the Wild Things 'roared their terrible roars'. It was
alternately frightening and reassuring to them. When the movie came
out, my oldest son said, 'Dad, we've got to go see that movie
together'. And so this afternoon, my two oldest kids accompanied me to
see the movie 'Where the Wild Things Are' directed by Spike Jonze. It
was a wonderful film and an amazing adaptation of a book I thought
could never be made into a proper film. The Wild Things were perfect,
a blend of puppetry, CGI and voice characterizations that brought them
to life. Big Bird and Elmo never made me tear up, but these Wild
Things did.
What held the film together was Max Records, the ten year old who
played Max. He was a delight to behold and well directed. Every frame
of the film that he graced exuded an exuberant boyishness. Max showed
us why we love boys. He is fearless and vulnerable at the same time.
He can go from happy to the verge of tears in an instant. We watched
him work through the dissolution of his family by watching the coming
together and breakup of his Wild Thing family. In the end, it is love
that saves the day.
It's funny, my youngest son thought the film would be too babyfied for
his too-cool-for-school, he was wrong of course, but his opinion is
typical for his age. My oldest son viewed the film as a link to his
childhood and his future. He recited some of the lines from memory and
told me that when he has kids he's going to read that book to them
just like I did to him. I'm not surprised. He's pretty sentimental, he
was the boy who cried when Christopher Robin went off to school at the
end of 'House at Pooh Corner'.
If you have an opportunity to see the film, I recommend it. You'll
certainly enjoy gazing at Max if you enjoy nothing else.
Doc
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