Where the Wild Things Are

Release date: 13 October 2009 (New York City, New York)

Based on Maurice Sendak's classic illustrated picture book, director Spike Jonze partners with screenwriter David Eggers to give Sendak's word-sparse book some meat. When lonely 9-year-old Max (Max Records) heads out from his home after a tiff with his mother (Catherine Keener) he sails into the fabled world of the wild things and becomes their king. But with kingship comes great responsibility and Max soon realizes having control is not what it's cracked up to be. Where the Wild Things Are works exceptionally well on the visual level - the look and feel Jonze creates, opting to use life-sized puppets in lieu of CGI, is breathtaking. But Sendak's slim tome works better with fewer words. The Max that emerges on screen is not the Max I remember as my father read the story to me. He is wilder and meaner, but perhaps that is Jonze point and we are meant to lose the innocence of childhood when we interact with the world of real life where the wild things lurk.

My rating for capturing the fulsome imagined world I remember as a child, 7 out of 10.