Where The Wild Things Are Waking Up

It's been a surprisingly good year for movies, despite the general debasement of the American movie-going culture. Between "Up", "The Hurt Locker", "District 9" and Zach Galifanakis' penis, it's been a pretty solid year overall. I mean, who doesn't want a fair dose of Galifanakis' member?(Actually, it wasn't, but whatever).

From the first moment that I heard the Arcade Fire-backed teaser for "Where the Wild Things Are", I was hooked. Desperate to see that movie, knowing that a children's film directed by Spike Jonze couldn't possibly resemble a children's film. Year-long rumors of production troubles and threats of taking the movie out of the director's hands did little to dissuade this notion.

Turns out that it definitely wasn't a children's film. As Jonze insisted, he wasn't interested in making a kids' movie, but rather, "a movie about childhood". He succeeded unlike anything I could've possibly imagined. I have read Sendak's classic dozens of times with Z, and we know it word for word, but I'll admit that I don't hold any undue reverence for the book. It's great, no question, but I never had a "oh god, they can't possibly make a movie of that" reaction. After all, it has the general guts for a movie - the book simply doesn't have a middle. But it has motivation, a beginning and an end. The rest was up to the filmmakers.

Jonze is a filmmaker I generally admire, though haven't loved. "Malcovich" was immensely clever and fun, but "Adaptation" made me frustrated and angry with its navel-gazing obsessions to self-obsessed artists. So I didn't walk in with reverence towards these uber-hipster filmmakers, and spent much of the last few weeks wondering whether or not I could take Z to see it. But that Arcade Fire song... god, it works wondrously in a trailer.

"Wake Up" is nowhere to be found in the movie, but the underlying message of the trade-offs that we make between childhood and adulthood infuses the soul of the film. The confusion that children feel, living in a world of adults and not feeling understood - and not understanding themselves - is something that carries into adulthood, and the characters of the "Wild Things". They are, on the surface, meant to mirror Max's lack of emotional control and understanding, but their very adult voices and relationships gives the subtle sensation that, no matter the age, we don't conquer these feelings and find answers to these questions.

In this way, "Where the Wild Things Are" is really the "Synecdoche, New York" of 2009. The feelings of alienation and confusion, the inability to put a finger on where you fit in, and who loves you, and whether or not those insecurities can and should be trusted... they're endemic to being 9 years old, but it doesn't leave when you're 20, or 30 or probably 60.

Not only is the song amazing, but the lyrics show there's no question they chose it for a clear, definable reason:

Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin rain storms turnin’ every good thing to rust.

The song is an admission that children understand there are complexities to life that they don't necessarily understand, but they know they're there. Just keeping those emotions buried deep does nothing but allows them to cope in a conventionally pre-defined way, but not to really live; eventually you fear that holding them down is what leads to emotionless drones later in life. While Max may not handle this emotions in the way that he necessarily should (he's definitely "wild" in a way that's too dangerous by half), at least he's acknowledging them. And the depiction of how those emotions bubble and surface in "Where the Wild Things Are" is brilliant, haunting and meaningful. Seeing them in Max is one thing, but then seeing them reflected in Max's face as other characters (namely Carol) grapple with them, is truly beautiful and heartbreaking.

And I still don't know if I should let Z see it. But I know that I'll want to have conversations with him about it for years to come. Especially about how the fact that, even as you get older, the confusion, the insecurity and all those other painful feelings don't necessarily go away. No one has it fully figured out.