The wild interpretation of "Where the Wild Things Are"

When your older sibling and his or her friends are jerks to you, when your mom is too stressed out from work and consumed with her new boyfriend to pay any attention to you, and when you are feeling alone, where are you to go? Where the Wild Things Are.

Max (Max Records), the main character in the film, directed by Spike Jonze, of the beloved children's book by Maurice Sendak, decides to run away from it all. He goes, wearing his wolf pajamas, to a world where he can act the way any child does: wild.

After boarding a boat found in the middle of the woods and conquering the seas through a fierce storm, he comes across a land populated by rambunctious creatures who are destroying houses. When the creatures stumble upon Max's hiding place they ask if he is their leader, to which Max says yes (since they threaten to eat him otherwise). When the head of the creatures, Carol (James Gandolfini) crowns Max king of their land, Max promises that they will all find happiness while he is in power.

The group of wild things, which also include KW (Lauren Ambrose), Douglas (Chris Cooper), Judith (Catherine O'Hara), Ira (Forest Whitaker), and Alexander (Paul Dano), then set off on a mission; they begin to construct a fort where they can go to sleep at night. Carol assists Max in the ideas and planning of their soon to be palace in hopes that it will somehow direct KW's attention from her new friends that she constantly leaves the group for. However, during the construction of their fort, tensions begin to rise between the group as they start to suspect Max of favoritism and realize that the happiness they were promised had not been achieved.

If you were someone who loved this book as a child, you will certainly leave the theater with a new perspective of Sendak's story of childhood adventures. After seeing the film, I felt it left me at a loss for a thorough understanding of the film's plot, since most scenes in the film follow Max running through the streets of his neighborhood or the woods along with a musical soundtrack which has been described as similar to the film Juno. The film version of Where the Wild Things Are is very dark in comparison, and in one scene profanity is used in a dialogue between the mother and Max, which may have caused the PG rating. If you had planned on bringing your younger siblings, cousins, nieces, or nephews to see this film over break, I recommend you stay home and read the book instead, which is always wildly better.