Discuss-o! : Where The Wild Things Are

I'm not familiar with the work of Maurice Sendak, the creator of Where the Wild Things Are. Like anyone else following the drama of how the adaptation finally made it to the big screen, I know the vague outline by now- born of immigrant parents in Brooklyn, Maurice create a number of works in the 60's and 70's, sparsely worded but wildly illustrated tales of pre-adulthood angst. The books are by now storied classics, clutched protectively to the collective chest of 2, maybe 3 generations of largely white, middle class people. At the time, they were censored ins ome areas, widely debated in others. Particularly for the illustrations, which evoke a universe of Id- packed with burly monsters, grotesque villains and brave children.

My girlfriend, Lisa, is a fan. She was having shpilkes over it's release way back in August. I agreed that it looked good- I like Spike Jonze, I liked the cast, I liked the soundtrack, and it certainly looked compelling. And of course, I originally figured it was another delightful sequel to Major League, this one where Charlie Sheen returns as Rick 'Wild Thing" Vaughan, now a pitching coach with the feisty Cleveland Indians, helping them back to the World Series! Surely they will need to sacrifice more than a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken to overcome those evil New York Yankees!!

!!!!

So we saw the movie, and we both genuinely had weird dreams that very night. We can't say for certain that the movie did it- we'd also had felafel and red Twizzlers that day- but it probably helped. Lisa was underwhelmed at first, but formed a complex assessment. I'll post hers first, and then my own take.

Lisa's Analysis

Lisa is always looking for a psychological angle, and her approach to this movie was no different. She felt that the creatures were manifestations of the Kubler-Ross model of the stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. There are 7 creatures, though if we take the morose couple of Ira and Judith as one, and powerless goat-boy Alexander as a proxy for Max himself, then we get a reasonable analogue: Ira and Judith are Denial; The hulking and impulsive Carol is very much Anger; Douglas, the peacekeeping bird creature, is our Bargaining, KW, the loner, is Depression, and the dangerous, silent but ultimately gentle Bernard is Acceptance.

In this context, the film is a story of a boy who has to come to grips with the fact that his father is gone. Supporting this is the crux of the story, where Carol wants to build a home for everyone to stay together. Keep on seeing it in this context, and it's difficult to see it any other way. Everyone is eager to accept Max as a king. They need a king. Max needs a father.

I think Lisa is dead on with this analysis. The director has subtly hinted as much, with Max glimpsing painful reminders of his father's absence; a globe on his desk from an anonymous giftbearer, his mother canoodling on the couch with another man.

Adam's Analysis

I, uh, thought maybe the whole thing was that Max had met up with some homeless people, and he saw them as scary/lovable monsters. Apparently, I can't distinguish subtext from subway- sandwiches that is!

*laughing so hard that delicious meatball sub starts spurting from my nose*

I'm open to any other suggestions. Maybe it was just a delightful family romp about a boy and his furry pals?

Oh, and I also saw some Viking allegories with Bob and Terry, the two weird little owls that say nothing, but that everyone seems to understand. Didn't Odin have a pair of ravens named Thought and Memory that would return to him every day? And doesn't Max's boat look like a tiny little Viking longboat? And didn't Max tell the Wild Things that he had beaten up some Vikings? Hrmmm???? We're through the looking glass here, people.