I saw the previews. I read the rhapsodic reviews. So this weekend I took myself and M. down to the theater to see Where the Wild Things Are, waiting to be wowed. We weren’t. In fact, we hated it. Shoot me.
The weather had been miserable for days, that perfectly, bone chillingly, miserable mix of 45 degrees and rain. As a result, the matinee was packed with families seeking some kind–any kind–of diversion. The lights went down and then it began: The running commentary all around us. “Daddy, why….” Deep breath. Grit teeth. Meanwhile emotional mayhem was unfolding on screen. Poor Max was being ignored by his mean sister. Her mean friends were pummeling Max with snowballs. Her mean friends were crushing his snow fort…with him in it! Nearly as disturbing–the fact that the all of the trees in the ostensibly snowy scene were sporting green leaves. But I digress.
M. couldn’t take the chatter in her ear any longer. We made a move to the only seats available, waaaaaaay down front. We’ve never sat there before and now I know why. It’s vomit inducing to look up at the big screen when the director uses quick cuts. Here’s Max destroying his sister’s room. Here’s Max angsting over his stressed-out mom’s work woes. Here’s Max watching his mom make kissy face with some guy. Wait…was any of this in the book? Heck no. But on it goes, with Max finally losing it big time and running out of the house. M. leaned into me and whispered, “He’s got serious anger management issues. He’s seriously messed up.” Uh huh.
We managed to crouch our way one row back, to a marginally better view. By this time Max is on his boat en route to the land of the wild things. It has to get better, no?
Um, no. The monsters…they’re all whiny and…emo. Good God. The whole freaking book, a well-read classic in our house, is only 9 or 10 sentences long. How were they possibly going to drag this out for another 80 minutes.
M. looked at me. I looked at her. We agreed to bail. I think the last time I walked out of a movie was Annie, about a bazillion years ago.
So what did we go see instead? Good Hair with Chris Rock. I have to say, we both thought it was really, really good and highly recommend it. Entertaining, and informative, and thought provoking and at times laugh out loud funny. It was particularly interesting to watch it in a majority African-American audience, to hear their reactions.
I know I should have been enthralled with WTWTA, that I should be blah blah blahing about the way director Spike Jonze plumbed the the inner emotional lives of children. Guess I’m an emotional dwarf. Sometimes a picture book should stay a picture book. Max doesn’t need a backstory.
My DH is a huge fan of the book and we had been planning on seeing a matinee on Sunday with our kids. Then we started hearing negative reviews like this one from friends. Depressing isn’t necessarily a turn-off as we liked both Wall-E and Up. But boring? We decided to pass…
Interesting. I want to see Good Hair. WTWTA, not so much. I must be in a minority of Americans because the trailers hold no appeal to me. I’m think we’ll wait until we can borrow WTWTA from our local library and watch it for free.
You would really appreciate Good Hair. Again, I highly recommend it.
It was boring at times. It also seemed to encourage violence–a lot of unrestrained “id” with throwing things at people’s heads and modeling of very inappropriate behavior for all the young children in attendance. But my teenage artist daughter and I enjoyed the amazing set, and the look of the film. We enjoyed conducting a Jungian analysis of the film (and book, in retrospect). They did share an exploration of the dark side of childhood…Sendak has always been very dark. For those who stayed to the end, we enjoyed the surrealist humor of Richard the raccoon and the insanely disturbing owls (neither of these were in the book).
My husband and I saw it, and were glad we did, even though we didn’t love it. We didn’t take the kids (9 and 12) and are glad we didn’t.
I loved the look of it, and that it was so creative and unusual. I thought it was a work of art, and was glad I saw it.
But I wish the music by Arcade Fire that was in the preview had been in the movie. The Karen O tracks were dull in comparison.
Was bored – haven’t felt like that in a movie for a million years. All 5 of our kids gave it a thumbs down and were very disappointed. The older ones, however, did understand where the movie was going with the monster representing all of Max’s emotions. But it got old after a while. I wouldn’t recommend it for younger children at all. I guess we shouldn’t have been overly anxious to see the movie and waited until more reviews were out. Oh well.
“Max doesn’t need a backstory.”
Hear hear!!!