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Where the Wild Things Are
Rated PG. Director Spike Jonze. Warner Brothers Pictures. Running Time: 1 hour 41 minutes.
MAD MAX: The costumed 9-year-old confronts his mother before going “wild.” Photo © 2009 Warner Brothers PicturesWhen Hollywood adapted Dr. Seuss’ culturally subversive How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the result was a grotesquely bloated film that considerably weakened the little book’s anti-commercialism message. (The 22-minute, animated TV version remains the priceless, definitive adaptation.) What would filmmakers do to Maurice Sendak’s even shorter story — nine sentences spread over 20 pages in which bizarre pictures bear most of the weight?
Sendak asked his friend Spike Jonze to film the adaptation and the result is a success because of the insight the director gives viewers into the little boy’s uncontrolled emotions, the book’s heart.
Working with co-scriptwriter Dave Eggers, Jonze provides a backstory to Max’s escapades. The 9-year-old boy feels neglected by his teenage sister, who is too busy to come outside and see his “igloo.” He gets jealous when his mother bestows attention on her new boyfriend, even though the man likes Max. A snowball fight with a group of teenagers ends badly when one of them jumps atop the igloo, smashing it down upon Max. And a science teacher only adds to the troubled boy’s anxieties by stating that the sun will eventually die.
It all comes to head with Max running through the house — dressed in a wolf costume — then jumping atop the dining table and refusing to get down. His mother yells that he is out of control, and he replies with three words that countless children have screamed at parents over the ages: “I hate you!”
In the movie version, Max then runs out of the house, dashes through the woods, jumps into a small sailboat, and sails all night through a storm. He eventually spies land and bonfires. After landing, he climbs a cliff toward the fires, but remains hidden as several bizarre-looking animals quarrel. When he emerges, Max saves himself by claiming that he is a king with special powers. The gullible creatures believe him, and thence commences several days of howling, cavorting and fort building. Max is indeed in the land “where the wild things are.”
In his six furry friends Max finds the family for which he has longed. However, relationships, even in an imaginary world, do not always go smoothly. And there is the pull of his real mother and his real home.
Using live characters rather making an animated film adds to the reality of Sendak’s exploration of the wild imagination of a child too young to reign-in his strong emotions. Jim Henson Company's Creature Shop does a marvelous job of bringing to life Sendak’s fierce and likeable horned/clawed creatures. The only defect is that the film sags a bit during a meandering middle segment.
The cast is excellent, especially Max Record as Max and Catherine Keener as his mother. The latter’s part is small but crucial in showing why Max would leave “where the wild things are” and return home. As Max eats his soup, her face perfectly expresses the love and concern of a mother for the lost child returned safely, somewhat like the father who welcomed back the strayed prodigal who “was lost and has been found.”
—Edward McNulty.
Capitalism: A Love Story
Rated R. Director: Michael Moore. Overture Films. Running Time: 2 hours 7 minutes.
CAPITALIST JERICHO: Michael Moore announces his presence at the New York Stock Exchange. Photo © 2009 Overture FilmsControversial filmmaker Michael Moore’s first film, Roger and Me, attacked General Motors and its CEO, Roger Smith, pointing out the impoverishment of so many laid-off autoworkers in the firm’s hometown of Flint, Mich. Likewise, each of his subsequent films has taken the form of a quest by the filmmaker, setting off to find answers to questions such as why there is so much violence in the United States; what happened before, during and after 9/11; or why are so many Americans unable to receive health care?
Moore is a grandstanding iconoclast, but I was intrigued that his newest film, issued on the 20th anniversary of his first, reveals fully the Christian basis for his views and his championship of society’s “left-outs.”
Moore regards capitalism as a system devoted to “taking and giving, mostly taking.” He interviews a Michigan bishop who also argues that capitalism, as it has been practiced in the United States for the past 40 years, has become an evil institution built on unrestrained greed. Then Moore invokes the Gospel story of Jesus and the rich young man. His satirical use of scenes from Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth (he literally puts words affirming the values of modern capitalism into the mouth of Jesus) will be appreciated by Christians who know that their Master affirmed the opposite of which the doctored image is saying.
Moore is at his best when he relates heart-wrenching stories of little people victimized by capitalist institutions. A Florida family videotapes police breaking down their locked door to serve foreclosure papers. Another family learns that their late loved one’s employer took out life “peasant insurance” (an actual phrase used in the policies) on the deceased. Without the man’s knowledge the firm bet on his life, reaping the reward when he died, and failing to inform or to share the death benefits with the family.
Moore makes good use of a newsreel clip of President Franklin Roosevelt issuing what the president called a “Second Bill of Rights” the year before his death. Among these was health care for every citizen, a proposal forgotten when the president died and the nation focused instead on ending World War II. Like Roosevelt, who wanted a “new deal” for American workers and their families, Moore argues passionately that we take a new look at capitalism and its effects.
Whatever one thinks about Moore and some of his tactics and claims, the fact that he sides with the One who came to bring “good news to the poor” and “release to the captives” seems beyond dispute.
—Edward McNulty.
A longer review with discussion questions is available on the Visual Parables Web site. |
