Where the Wild Things Are: VOD or DVD, your choice.

At some point in 2009,  along with the slobbering film junkies and depressive Muppet nerds,  I was eagerly anticipating the release of Spike Jonze's latest film, Where the Wild Things Are.  Dave Eggers was attached as co-writer; the trailer was lush and atmospheric; and the indie scoring had the right dose of I-tunes download appeal. If anything at all, Warner Bros. had cornered the McSweeney-reading, American Apparel-clad hipster market like nobody's business. But amid all of the excitement, reports of development and production snafus began to leak out into the blogosphere, which signaled that this beloved children's book could potentially turn into a cinematic shit-show.  The more optimistic side of me held onto the belief that Spike Jonze could actually pull it off.  After all, he successfully executed Being John Malkovich (Love!), Adaptation (Like.) and a countless number of music videos.  All required making sense of the nonsensical, or, at the very least, giving narrative form to emotional qualities in music--quite an ambitious feat for a filmmaker.

Unfortunately, despite the capable cinematography and poetic visuals, the story does not sustain one's interest for the duration of a feature length film.  Watching a monster clobber another monster, walk across the desert, or barbarically yawp over a seaside cliff, may have some impact on the audience for the first time, but the following 20 times--without empathy, believable motivation or entertaining action sequences--it all becomes a monster bore.  I suppose it was difficult to watch, because there was no emotional depth to the kinetic energy. 

The film wasn't completely flawed, the first 15-20 minutes that provided the back-story of Max, the main protagonist, and his family was lovely and competently rendered, perfectly and poignantly illustrating family dynamics (especially with the mother, played by Catherine Keener) and the psychological qualities of the characters.  Ultimately, the experience of watching Where the Wild Things Are was a bit like seeing someone's vacation photos. Lovely to look at, but not very fun because you aren't in them.