"Where the Wild Things Are" Review! (spoilers)

[Small White Car]

Just saw it last night...

I could not stand this movie. I was bored from start to finish and I wanted to leave but I was with people

Someone's going to say "you didn't get it" but no, I certainly did and that's the problem. I don't mind some symbolism but I can't stand a film where every single tiny thing is a freak'n metaphor for something and "symbolism" is a bigger character than the already-big furry animals.

I felt like Spike was in the seat behind me, kicking it and saying "get it? get it? get it?" the whole time. Annoying.

Now, movies like 'Being John Malkovich' certainly have a lot of symbolism in them, but that film was also entertaining. You have to layer that stuff on top of something interesting. It can't stand alone as the film's only redeeming quality.

I liked the 15 seconds with the raccoon. That was about it.

 

[davejames]

Just saw it last night...

I could not stand this movie. I was bored from start to finish and I wanted to leave but I was with people

Someone's going to say "you didn't get it" but no, I certainly did and that's the problem. I don't mind some symbolism but I can't stand a film where every single tiny thing is a freak'n metaphor for something and "symbolism" is a bigger character than the already-big furry animals.

I felt like Spike was in the seat behind me, kicking it and saying "get it? get it? get it?" the whole time. Annoying.

Now, movies like 'Being John Malkovich' certainly have a lot of symbolism in them, but that film was also entertaining. You have to layer that stuff on top of something interesting. It can't stand alone as the film's only redeeming quality.

I liked the 15 seconds with the raccoon. That was about it.

Well to be fair, almost the entire story takes place in this kid's head, so it's pretty hard to avoid the symbolism thing. It's not like he literally journeyed to a land of big, furry creatures.

Personally I saw this more as a tone poem like 2001 or one of Terrence Malick's movies, where it's more about creating a dreamlike, meditative mood than about just telling a traditional story.

I happen to LOVE those kinds of movies, but obviously they're not for everybody.

 

[JacksonArcher]

I simply loved this movie. Everything from the sketches on the logos to the score to the visuals to the best performance by a child actor I've seen in ages, Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are is cinematic beauty.

It's the only time in a film where I literally felt like a kid, like I was 9 years-old again. It captures the sense of wonderment, excitement, fear, anger and sadness that comes with childhood so amazingly beautifully and perfectly that I was completely and utterly swept away.

There was a time when I was Max, and I got angry at my Mom for not showing me attention or for going out with other guys. I was never close with my father. And I always had this vivid sense of imagination, which the film encapsulates so well. The voice acting, the f/x of the Wild Things, which I never questioned for a second, it was all so magically surreal and just beautiful. I was nearly in tears two times close to the end and that rarely happens to me when I'm watching even the most gut-wrenching of a film. Everything felt so emotionally true and resonant. I was literally just completely caught up in every little thing the film presented.

It is unequovically one of my favorite films of the year, and I believe will go down as a cinema classic. Where the Wild Things Are is a unique cinematic experience that literally made me feel like a kid again. That's the best way I can describe it.

 

[davejames]

^ Yeah I wasn't really aware it was happening, but by the end I was surprised to find I had grown kind of attached to the Wild Things, and was sad to see Max leave them behind.

 

[Small White Car]

There was a time when I was Max, and I got angry at my Mom for not showing me attention or for going out with other guys.

Maybe that's the key. I was never mad at my parents as a kid. I couldn't relate to Max. I never had problems like he did. It wasn't familiar to me at all.

That might be a key ingredient for liking the film.

 

[Trippy]

^but we all have been Max at some point in our childhoods...no child is perfect! (Nor is any parent)

A masterpiece...I cried, laughed, was uncomfortable with the honesty of Max's emotions and the Wild Things symbolism...it was everything the book was to me as a kid

Dark, yes. So is life...and children know this on a base level (as represented by the 'dream' of the Wild Things), and we adults know it from experience, and have the ability to work it out rationally...an ability kids don't have.

My son is 11 and loved it...even though it made him cry a bit.

 

[Small White Car]

^but we all have been Max at some point in our childhoods...

I can honestly say I was not.

And that doesn't make me perfect. I just had different problems than he did. I was never angry like that.

 

[davejames]

There was a time when I was Max, and I got angry at my Mom for not showing me attention or for going out with other guys.

Maybe that's the key. I was never mad at my parents as a kid. I couldn't relate to Max. I never had problems like he did. It wasn't familiar to me at all.

That might be a key ingredient for liking the film.

I wasn't an angry kid either, and never had a divorce or step parents to worry about, but there were still aspects of Max that felt familiar to me.

Like the way he was able to disappear into his own world and imagination, or that feeling of being ignored or misunderstood, or how hurt and resentful you could become towards people at times...

Most kids tend to be extremely wrapped up in their own world and emotions, and don't yet have the perspective to know how to deal with everything. I thought the movie captured that perfectly.

 

[RoJoHen]

It's essentially just about a kid looking for attention, not getting that attention (or getting the wrong attention), and throwing a temper tantrum as a result. You don't need to have a dysfunctional family life in order to relate to that.

You just need to have had a really bad day.