Thread title basically sums it up. "Where the Wild Things Are," as interpreted by Spike Jonze, is not a kid's movie in the same sense that "Calvin and Hobbes" isn't exactly a kid's comic strip. I think children can enjoy both, although C&H's audience will be broader since it's not usually as scary as "Where the Wild Things Are" is at some points. But both comic and movie really "get" what it's like to be a little boy, full of rage and love and bruises and excitement and confusion and joy - and above all else, imagination. Neither sugarcoats the kaleidoscope of emotion that is childhood, nor condescends to the audience by going for obvious jokes or cheap sentimentality. They're both portraits of childhood by adults, and to a certain extent exist to remind us older folk what being a kid was really like.
In many ways, Max and Calvin are the same character. Anyone who has spent hours leafing through a Watterson collection will, I think, immediately find "Where the Wild Things Are" familiar. There's no direct character analogue to Hobbes, but the Wild Things as a group fulfill that role - KW is Hobbes as confidant and protector, Carol is Hobbes as playmate (the only person who as excited by Calvin/ Max's fantasies as Calvin/ Max himself) and sometime-enemy, Alex and Judith are Hobbes as the cynic, and Douglas is Hobbes as truth-seer.
There is one important thematic difference between the two: C&H was about being a child, first and foremost - Calvin is six years old for a reason. "Where the Wild Things Are," on the other hand, is about being that same child at the cusp of growing up. Max starts and ends the movie running as wild as any wild thing, growling and screaming to the air, but it's tempered the second time around by a burgeoning maturity. For Max, the Wild Things were more than just a Hobbesian friend/companion/enemy - they were in a very literal, and just occasionally heavy-handed, way, Max himself. He's forced to confront his own behavior over the course of the movie, and while he never rejects it (Jonze steadfastly refuses to moralize), he begins to understand that his actions have consequences for others, and why his mother looks so weary at the end of each day.
So they're not identical - maybe the thread title should read, "Where the Wild Things Are" is the spiritual sequel to "Calvin and Hobbes," heh. But I feel like Watterson and Jonze were drawing from the same well. Reading "Calvin and Hobbes" in elementary and junior high school, it seemed like Watterson understood me, personally. Not a unique phenomenon, I know! Like any little boy, I came up with my own crazy games because the "normal" ones were too restrictive and boring. I invented grand worlds for my friends and I to inhabit, and built them out of couches and blankets and paper. I lost my temper when my parents had better things to do than pay attention to me, and I felt happy and peaceful when they did (and both extremes could be felt within the space of about five minutes). The world was exciting and strange, and the worst thing would be to give in to the mundanity of the lives of adults.
"Where the Wild Things Are" made me feel the same way.
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I wasn't planning on watching this in theaters--but your review intrigues me. Is there a great incentive for watching it early, or can it wait?
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I will also say that I think there's a number of so-called "kid" films that have come out recently that fit this category. "Up," for example, was a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I would not recommend it to very young children. There are themes and ideas in that movie that I felt were beyond their comprehension, and more elements that would bring them down than perk them up.
Although I will say that it is a good movie to see in a grandparent/grandchild duo. That is one instance in which I think a kid would really enjoy it. But like Wild Things, I felt that it was really a film for an older generation.
About "Where the Wild Things Are" itself, I will also say that I think the movie was targeted more towards people who grew up on the book than people who are now passing through that stage of their lives. I think that's why it was made to be so nostalgic and wistful -- and I will also say that it worked on me. I cried, I laughed, and I left the theatre full of nostalgia for my youth. Which is the point of the film, and also of the original book.
Just my two cents. Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: For Max, the Wild Things were more than just a Hobbesian friend/companion/enemy - they were in a very literal, and just occasionally heavy-handed, way, Max himself. He's forced to confront his own behavior over the course of the movie, and while he never rejects it (Jonze steadfastly refuses to moralize), he begins to understand that his actions have consequences for others, and why his mother looks so weary at the end of each day.
Great analysis, Tarrsk. This is exactly the sentiment I was trying to convey after Ericka and I saw the movie yesterday. You put it much more eloquently than I did, though. None of the umms and "you know what I mean...?" and and whatnot.
But anyway, I enjoyed it quite thoroughly.
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