Chicken Soup for "The Wild Thing"'s soul

Every now and then a movie comes along that makes it’s audience rise with thunderous applause. Every now and then there is a movie that is more than ‘a little hyped up’, and it ends up exceeding your wildest expectations. For me, one of those films has come: “Where The Wild Things Are”.
    I think we all knew from the second that first trailer hit the web that this film was going to be great, or at least, we were all hoping that it would. In the week that led up to my viewing of Spike Jonze’s newest film, I heard many things from the critics. Several people cited it as being ‘the best reminder of childhood that has been made into film’, and when the credits started to roll, as I wiped the tears off my face, I realized just how right they were.
    Based on the classic Maurice Sendak children’s book, “Wild Things” is the story of a young boy in a wolf costume named Max, who one night travels to an island where a band of strange creatures make him their king. The film expands this a bit, giving the Wild Things plenty more dialogue than the book did, and Max (played by Max Records) goes through an emotional and spiritual journey that we are allowed to witness.
    Between the artistic beauty, fabulous writing, and amazing direction, perhaps the aspect of “Wild Things” that stuck out to me the most was the incredible voice acting. The Wild Things were voiced by James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O’Hara, Chris Cooper, and Paul Dano. Dano’s already fantastic career continues to go dud-less, and Cooper delivers the applaudable performance that we’ve come to expect from him. While they all deliver great performances…it’s Gandolfini that really steals the show. If there were an Oscar for voice acting, Gandolfini would surely have it in the bag. His performance brought out tears in me, as well as several people sitting around me. The man has already proved himself to be a great actor, and there were definitely several moments that I said: “I cannot believe this is Tony Soprano.”
    But I’d be doing this movie a great injustice if I didn’t talk about Max Records’ performance in this movie. Young Max takes the audience down an emotional rollercoaster and will awake all kinds of childhood memories you have buried away long ago. I was amazed by the talent that this kid put on display, at the same time I have to applaud Jonze for getting such a young actor to do the things he does in this movie.
    Although rated PG, and based on children’s story, I’m not sure if I recommend the film for children, if for no other reason than they are too young to understand the depth that the film has.
    With an astounding ten Best Picture nominations this year, Oscar surely has to recognize this artistic wonder. “Where The Wild Things Are” will take you back, that’s for sure. There’s an unbelievable amount of talent that has been shoved into this ninety-four-minute instant classic, and the final product deserves far more than ‘a little hype’.


Four Stars