(2009) Rambunctious and temperamental, Max (Max Records), fatherless and friendless, takes out his frustrations in his older sister Claire's room after one of her friends smashes through his igloo following a snowball fight. In his room, where he's built a new fort, he has an armillary sphere (with a dedication from his father) along with a collection of stuffed animals, a telescope, and so much other stuff.

With his mother (Catherine Keener) he can be tender, amusing her with a vampire story, or horrid, screaming atop the table when her boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) has come over: "Woman, feed me!" Embarrassed, she orders him to his room, but Max in his wolf suit runs outside into the night into the woods.

Filling his film with loads of psychological stuffing, director Spike Jonze, with his co-screenwriter Dave Eggers, takes lots of liberties, expanding scenes and adding dialogue, in adapting Maurice Sendak's classic 1963 children's story of only 338 words; it's not a movie for kids. I'd be surprised if most adults were to find it entertaining, though the wild things in costumes by Jim Henson's Creature Shop (with some animatronics and CGI faces) resemble Sendak's illustrations from the book.

Max gets into a skiff on the water and heads out to sea; a storm washes him onto an island where he climbs a precarious precipice. Here Max encounters the creatures within his imagination.

Prone to tantrums ("Isn't anybody gonna be on my side anymore?") Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), an oafish ogre with horns and claws, has primal emotions, such as fear and jealousy; very needy, he's both destructive and creative. Sarcastic with a poor self-image, Judith (voiced by Catherine O'Hara) has an unpleasant, defeatist attitude. Her fat-nosed boyfriend Ira (voiced by Forest Whitaker) is passively agreeable with his companions.

Smaller than the others, except for Max, Alexander (voiced by Paul Dano) is the scapegoat who notices what others fail to perceive. Beaked-and-birdlike, Douglas (voiced by Chris Cooper) in a superego role possesses solemn wisdom, knowledge of right and wrong; he's Carol's best friend. Standoffish and often in the background, the Bull (voiced by Michael Berry Jr) rarely speaks (perhaps an absentee father-figure).

Maternally protective of Max but disinclined to remain with the group, KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose), who resists Carol's demands and desire for her, raises his ire by bringing the incomprehensible owls Bob and Terry, "who have the answers to everything," into the exclusive community.

Initially Max bursts upon the wild things as Carol's in a destructive rampage. After Douglas reprimands Max for destroying their abodes and Judith declares that problems should be eaten, Max shouts: "Be still!" He then avoids becoming supper by convincing them that though he appears to be small he's actually a very powerful king with knowledge of the secrets of the world. One of those secrets he later reveals to Carol: "Did you know the sun was gonna die?"

Believing that Max truly has arrived to be their king, capable of making "everything right," Carol expects Max to restore happiness and bring back KW. KW returns, but Max's idea of repairing hard feelings by engaging in a dirt-clod fight between good guys and bad guys only leaves everyone feeling worse.

Following Carol's showing Max his carefully crafted model of a miniature city and speaking of his dream of wanting a place where only the things you want to have happen happen, Max proposes that they build the perfect fort and sleep in a pile together. Max compliments everyone on the work being performed; but when Judith questions Max's having favorites (such as Carol) and he growls back, she snaps that he's not supposed to get upset with them.

Though Alexander cautions Max not to let Carol find out that he's not really a king with special powers, Douglas announces: "There's no such thing as a king," sending Carol out of control.

While Sendak named the monsters after his relatives - Tzippy, Moishe, Aaron, Emile, and Bernard - for the opera adaptation of his book, I don't know the significance of the names in this movie.

"To survive and evolve, every society needs some individuals who are more aggressive, restless, stubborn, submissive, social, hyperactive, flexible, solitary, anxious, introspective, vigilant - and even more morose, irritable, or outright violent than the norm."

Having just finished reading David Dobbs's article in The Atlantic, comparing "orchid" children, having genetic traits "tremendously maladaptive in one situation" yet proving "highly adaptive in another," with the more prevalent "dandelion" children, I can surmise that Max is an orchid child with high sensitivity to his environment.

For example, very likely Judith has the shorter, less efficient version of the SERT gene, aka 5-HTTLPR, a mood messenger that assists in regulating serotonin processing, thus significantly increasing her risk of being seriously depressed. Carol probably has an "orchid variant of the DRD4 gene," increasing his risk of ADHD. What are monsters with bad or risk genes, creating "dysfunction in unfavorable contexts," can discover that these same genes "enhance function in favorable contexts."

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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