where the wild things are

Don't take your six year old and his friends to see this movie.

I'm not good at reviewing movies. Perhaps it was amazingly good and I just couldn't tell. It certainly did have some good points... Anyway, here are my thoughts. Take them or leave them.

Because it was based on a little kids' book, I expected it to be made for kids. It wasn't. Not 6 year olds, anyway. They were disturbed or bored by most of it. They were laughing out loud at some of the bits - like the snow ball and dirt fights - but didn't really know what to do when these bits ended badly. At one stage I pulled out my movie tickets to check that it was PG and not M rated.

Overall, it is a movie about the sadness, anger and confusion felt by a boy from a divorced family. His mother is stressed and overworked, his father is absent and his sister is also struggling to cope. Max (the boy) looses it when his mum has another guy over and won't come and see the cubby house he has built. He puts on his wolf suit, yells, bites her and then runs away to where the wild things are. He tells a few fibs and becomes king of the wild things. The wild things are a sad, angry and confused mob who are in the habit of eating their kings when they find out he not capable of solving their problems and making them happy. Max sees in the wild things some of his own dysfunctionality, but he cannot fix their problems. He goes home to his mum who is waiting for him.

The movie offers no magical happy ending for either Max and his family or for the wild things. The only way forward is for everyone to love and be loved and try their best to get on.

The characters were very well drawn. The boy and his mother and sister were painfully believable, and so were the wild things. At points, the drama could have been happening in my lounge room. I think this made it hard for the kids to see. It was obvious they weren't enjoying it.

It felt really long. The kids thought it was the longest movie they had ever seen. It wasn't.

Visually it was good. The animation seemed well done. The scenery was not exactly beautiful, but it matched the story perfectly. I liked how Max's wolf suit was filfthy.

The line of dialogue which stood out as bad was the key line taken from the book: "please don't go, we'll eat you up we love you so." In the book, this line is a favourite. It displays the futile agression of the wild things, and Max's authority over them. He says a firm, no. But in the movie it is almost a romantic croon. Feels wrong.

Overall, I have no idea. It's a thoughtful movie. I found it to be more bearable than most kids movies. Perhaps for the older boys?

Anyone else seen it?