Print this article E-mail this article More articles by this author

Rating: Country: USA Release Date: October 16, 2009 Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Director: · Spike Jonze Cast: · Max Records · Catherine Keener · James Gandolfini · Lauren Ambrose · Forest Whitaker · Chris Cooper · Catherine O' Hara Related Sites: · See the official movie website and decide for yourself if it's appropriate for your child's viewing. · Or see if there's something else showing that would be more appropriate, perhaps the Toy Story In 3-D double feature? Grade: D

Millions of children have flipped through the pages of Maurice Sendak's Caldecott Medal-winning book Where The Wild Things Are since it was first published in 1963. Spike Jonze, the director of such quirky fare as "Being John Malcovich" and "Adaptation," has crafted a live action interpretation of the book. The imagery strikes true, but the message is disturbing and in my view is not suitable for children, which is the audience Warner Brothers Pictures is undoubtedly trying to reach.

The movie opens innocently enough, as the Warner Brothers logo and other production company logos are scribbled over in the style of a young child. But the first live action sequence is disturbing, showing Max (Max Records), dressed in his wolf pajamas (complete with whiskered hoodie) chasing his family dog down stairs and all over the house. It's shot by handheld camera, making it feel even more violent as Max careens off walls, falls down stairs and bounces across the couch before tackling the dog. I'm no dog breed expert, but it was a small animal, not a Great Dane or Saint Bernard. Rough housing with animals in that way is incredibly dangerous, no matter what size the pooch is. Jonze freezes the frame to show Max with a bizarre, mirthless grin on his face, the dog bear-hugged to his chest, and the title graphic splashed across the image. My friend Tom, a teacher and father to four kids himself, already had a look of concern on his face as we watched, less than a minute into the picture.

Shortly thereafter, the scene is Max trying to goad his older sister into coming outside to play in the snow. He had built an igloo and had prepared snowballs. Her friends show up and Max fires the first volley, setting off a seemingly innocent snowball fight. As the older kids gang up on him, we see Max running for the safety of the igloo, a smile on his face as he delighted in having people play with him. The delight turns to horror when one of his sister's friends nails a Jimmy "Superfly"Snuka-style body splash to the top of the igloo, bringing the fragile construct crashing down on Max's head. Shattered, he tearfully charges into the house and destroys his sister's room in a fit of rage. His single mother ("Being John Malcovich" alum Catherine Keener)--Dad is nowhere to be found--comes home and tries to cheer him up by indulging his fantasy stories, which are rather revealing of a tortured young mind themselves. Oblivious to Max's isolation, she works after hours at home and attempts to make time with her boyfriend. Max, clad once again in the ridiculous wolf costume, plays the brat, scraping the kitchen chair loudly across the floor, complaining about the frozen corn his struggling mother is about to prepare and finally standing up on the kitchen table, screaming like a monster and telling his mother, "I'll eat you up!" Yes, that line is directly from the book, but the book has no picture for it. You may not have ever realized how out of control Max was at that moment. Embarrassed, Mom tries to remove him bodily from the kitchen, but Max bites her near the shoulder. She drops him in surprise and pain, and he runs off down the street and eludes his mother's pursuit.

At this point, I leaned over to Tom and whispered, "Holy crap. In my house, we kids never would have got away with any of this." The dog would have bit my face and my father, who was a former Marine, wouldn't have put up with behavior like that for one second. Mom wouldn't either. Tom agreed, and I got the sense that he and I were thinking the same thing at that moment, that both the mother and child were in dire need of professional counseling.

Jonze doesn't do anything fancy to blur the line between reality and fantasy. Max finds a boat on the shore near the woods he ran into and sets sail, at night mind you, into what one would assume to be an ocean. Night turns to day, day back to night, and finally Max makes landfall where the Wild Things literally are. He finds Carol, who resembles a Muppet ogre, destroying what we soon realize are the Wild Things' houses. Max joins in, barreling through the dwellings made of sticks. The wild things stop destroying stuff and examine the boy, debate about eating him, but finally decide to make him their king. The next hour or so is like a surreal episode of The Muppet Show gone the way of Lord of the Flies. Max makes up tall tales to feel self-important, the monsters look to him for guidance, and Max ultimately disappoints them. Carol is voiced by James Gandolfini, who I generally like as an actor, but I struggled to see any difference here between Carol and Tony Soprano beyond the tempered language. Carol has anger management issues, and self-destructs regularly. The more even-keeled monsters, such as Ira (Forest Whitaker) and Douglas (Chris Cooper), fall into step with whatever Carol bullies them into. Catherine O'Hara is her usual irritating self as the scheming Judith monster, but Six Feet Under star Lauren Ambrose is likable as the level-headed KW -- level-headed as much as a monster who thinks two owls she knocked out of the sky with stones are her best friends can be, that is. King Max finally decides, after disappointing Carol to the point that the monster threatens to eat him (a moment that turns the tables back on Max, who threatened to eat his own mother earlier), to abdicate his throne and return home.

After another long sailing expedition back to reality, he sprints back to his home where his mother gives him a great big hug, feeds him a humongous slice of chocolate cake, and promptly falls asleep at the table, ignoring Max once again. Max smiles a sinister, devilish smirk as the credits roll.

Just about the only good thing I can say about the movie is that from a technical standpoint, it's well-crafted. I appreciated that Spike Jonze went wide with the camera shots often, giving us full view of the Wild Things as they dance, rough house and rage. Jim Henson's Creature Shop costumes make the Wild Things look like they've lept right off of Sendak's pages.

I found it easier to suspend my disbelief for the Wild Things than to buy Max or his mother. I think I must certainly have old-fashioned views about parenting, because I was appalled at the behavior of both. Max feels completely isolated -- his father is gone, his sister ignores him, and his mother only deals with him when it's convenient. His aggression is unchecked, as evidenced by his disturbing chase after the dog, biting his mother, and orchestrating violent games with the Wild Things. To me, Max exhibits strong signs of hyperactivity as he desperately seeks attention. His mother indulges his behavior by letting him get away with everything. He wrecks his sister's room, and all he gets is a weak "Oh, Max," the equivalent of a dismissive sigh from a disinterested parent. The bite is rewarded some hours later with enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma. No words are passed onscreen between mother and son, she simply embraces his return and gives him cake and undivided attention until she falls asleep, leaving Max once again free to indulge in his abhorrent behavior. If I'd have pulled the kind of nonsense Max gets away with, I'd have been spanked, sent to my room, grounded, and every other appropriate form of punishment you can think of. Yes, I believe spanking is entirely appropriate. Sitting in "time out" just gives the unruly child a chance to plan. I've seen many kids who don't get disciplined firmly escalate their battle with the parent to the point of absurdity. I'm not advocating child abuse, but a good smack on the backside generally stops things immediately before they spiral out of control. I felt like taking both Max and his mother over my knee for pretty much the entire movie.

The film is rated PG, which in my opinion proves how out-of-touch our rating system is. I would strongly recommend not taking your child to see this if they are under middle-school age, and even then I may have some reservations. "Where The Wild Things Are" is like "Donnie Darko" aimed at kids. Shockingly, as I stood with other members of the press and publicity folks after the advance screening, many parents streamed out of the auditorium with grade school aged kids saying, "I liked it, I thought it was cute, it was just like the book." If the depiction of lousy parenting in the film wasn't enough to drive me nuts, the reactions of the public just drove it home. I hope some of those parents remember that when their own kids have the family dog in a headlock, or bite them for not getting their way. The sorry state of American education starts at home, and with parents today often too busy to be involved with their kids lives, we're going to be stuck electing one of these hyperactive, emotionally stunted and functionally illiterate kids one day.

Tom was kind enough to loan me his kids' copy of Sendak's book. As a picture book, I remember being enthralled by the artwork. But I never picked up on the deeper issues when I read it in first grade. The parent who said, "It's just like the book," is right, unfortunately. The book only hints at Max's mental state, saying only that he makes mischief. Chasing a dog down a flight of stairs with a fork held tines up, hammering nails into the wall to tie bed sheets to for a fort, and screaming in bold letters at his mother isn't mischief, it's clinically negative and destructive behavior. Mom sends him to bed without supper, where he dreams of his trip to the land of the Wild Things, but he wakes up just as things start to go poorly because mother brought his supper to his room. Rewarding aberrant and especially violent behavior teaches that there are no negative consequences for the child's actions. Perhaps Maurice Sendak's book isn't as great as we all remember it, and the film certainly doesn't improve upon on the message of indulging the child, consequence be damned.