Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Where the Wild Things Are
2009
**½
Director: Spike Jonze
Cast: Max Records, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo

Max is a lonely 8-year-old boy whose life with his single mother and his big sister is full of strife. One day he runs away from home and ends up in a faraway land, where he meets another dysfunctional family, a group of wild things. Spike Jonze's extremely thinly plotted film is expanded or, should I say, stretched from Maurice Sendak's short children's picture book. The visual look is wonderful, but the slow pacing and the suicidally depressed furry creatures offer very little fun or wonderment, even if the message - life in any family is a daily battle with challenges and compromises - is a worthy one.