by Donald Lind

Created on: October 19, 2009

"Facing Your Fears Through Imagination"

"Where the Wild Things Are" is not a kid's movie.

Director Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich") paints this film as a human drama, with a depressed lead who copes with the various troubles in his life through imagination. The lead just so happens to be a kid, which illustrates the point of how many children, no doubt some audience members, used to indulge in fantasy to escape their problems when they were young as well.

Although "Where the Wild Things Are" is about children and how they cope with life and face their inner fears, it isn't a film that is geared towards children. It is not about putting in slapstick humor, goofy sidekick characters or bright scenery. There are bits of humor and joy, but this is a mature film that doesn't talk down to kids and treat the story like a parent would to a 5-year-old.

Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers did a remarkable job at crafting a thoughtful look at life and its ups and downs through the eyes of a child. Even more impressive is how they took the seminal book by Maurice Sendak, on which the film is based, and gave it new layers while retaining the spirit of the book. They kind of had to, given that the book is a mere nine sentences long, and they had to write a script for a full-length feature. That they added new and familiar themes onto the beloved book is quite the accomplishment.

The main character Max (Max Records) is a depressed, young boy. He feels the weight of the world pulling down around him. His dad is gone and his mom (Catherine Keener) is dating a new man (Mark Ruffalo), whom Max doesn't care about one way or another. His sister Claire (Pepita Emmerichs) is growing up and has more time for her friends than her younger brother. On top of everything else, Max begins to worry about the "sun dying" after learning about the inevitability of the death of life in science class.

The one comfort Max takes is in his brilliant imagination, in which, like a true kid, he can craft amazing stories in which anything can happen, because he says so. Some of the stories he dictates have an air of personal sadness, and the feeling of Max's own isolation, which go unnoticed by his mother. One night, his mounting stress comes out in a fight with his mother and a guilty Max runs away.

Max's journey takes him across the seas to a forest/jungle/desert island, where he meets the Wild Things, a group of giant, furry monsters, with fangs and claws, who apparently love to put weird

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