Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Where the Wild Things Are is one of the greatest children’s books of all time (right up there with Goodnight Moon and Pet the Bunny), which is why I’m very skeptical if not protective of what Hollywood might have done to it.

Warner Bros.’ trailer is beautifully simplistic and well composed. It juxtaposes simple clips while managing to maintain broad, emotional meaning that anyone with a childhood can identify with: being bored at school, spying on adults, a sense of adventure, loving the wilderness, etc.  The Arcade Fire music is wonderful and this trailer works so well that it allows for free association to conjure up individualized childhood recollections.

Most of us know the story of Where the Wild Things Are. Young Max is sent to bed after being a little monster and imagines a land where real monsters roam. He eventually becomes king of these beasts and explores the world with them before returning back home after becoming homesick. There in lies the problem. WTWTA fits perfectly in a 20 or so paged picture book, but how does all of that translate into a full-length movie?

We’ve all seen troubled adaptations of these sorts of childen’s books (How the Grinch Stole Christmas for example) and other short stories. The problem being the ideas are amazing in conception, but only fit over a short presentation. When the idea is stretched it loses its vitality. If WTWTA is going to be a short film, I could see from this trailer that it would to rock the world, but in long-form I can’t imagine how it will fill all the time. Max walking around the forest with the Wild Things can only be so amusing, which means that writer/director Spike Jonze and co-writer David Eggers must have developed further content for the feature.

Looking at Jonze’s (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Eggers’ history, there is definitely a pallet for awesome creativity and complexity which the trailer does not give away beyond the emotional triggers presented. A book synopsis of Eggers’ The Wild Things (a book based on the screenplay) offers a divergent take on the standard WTWTA story. This, is a very good sign.

As a piece of art itself, I cannot stop watching this trailer and reconnecting with thoughts from being a kid. I’m proud to admit that this work brings smiling tears to my eyes as I think about youth, discovery, nature and those places where we all can go to be ourselves and live in some form of harmony.

Have Jonze and Eggers solved the curse of adaptation or will WTWTA fall as a hollow sampling of  an excellent short story? If this trailer is any indication, the live action version may just do us kids some justice.

Maybe this movie is exactly what we all need.

Bottom line:

I’d pay to see this.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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