My wife and I decided to take Claire, our 4 1/2 year old, and her 6 year old friend to see Where the Wild Things Are today. Wow, I think I would’ve rather stuck hot nails in my eye sockets. I won’t posit to suggest I am not about to give stuff away; read at your own pace. The whole opening sequence was really hard to watch and disturbing. The mom, played by Catherine Keener (who I can barely stand in anything), works long jobs and seems clueless, except when she has Mark Ruffalo over to dinner (for frozen corn?!) and to snog with. The only mention of Max’s dad is a globe that’s engraved from him, but there’s nothing about him at all except that this kid comes from a broken family. The sister, named Claire, and her friends have a snowball battle with Max (who by the way instigates it). He loses the battle and cries about it, as Claire leaves with her friends. Big deal. Then kids freaks out because Mom is snogging Ruffalo and bites her on the shoulder. You know what he needs? A spanking and maybe a therapist. Instead, he runs away.

He gets to a land Where the Wild Things Are, and they have cute human names like Carol and Donald. They also sound human. He arrives as Carol is having his own temper tantrum and tearing down everyone’s houses because his girlfriend left the community. (Wouldn’t you if your man threw temper tantrums?). Max brings a new element to the group and of course he pretends to be almighty, so they elect him “king”. He runs around with them for who knows how many days (there are more sunrises and sunsets in the film than stars in the sky; the beat each other, rip trees out of the ground, and are annoying. KW, the girlfriend comes back, and everything is all happy-like for about half an hour in the film. Then Max is paranoid that Carol is going to discover he’s not really a king, so he wants to make a secret compartment where he can hide while sleeping, away from his “friend”. Of course Carol gets pissed off and rips Donald’s arm off!! Yes, a kids movie, everyone. I sure bet the kids love that part. In this big fight KW decides to leave again (sure, sure, she’s said that before), and in the morning Max decides to go home. He leaves a heart made from sticks for Carol (which I suppose means, it’s ok that you’re an abusive asshole). He leaves the group and they just stand there as he floats away (no, there is not any resolution with the group). He goes back across the “seas”, lands, and runs home to his mother. She, of course, is waiting. She cries, feeds him, and she falls asleep at the table while he’s stuffing his face. The end. Ugh.

Side note. Later in the day, my daughter threw her own temper tantrum, bit a huge hole in my wife’s wrist, and yelled that she was going to run away from home to where the wild things are. Great, Spike Jones. Awesome. Thanks a lot.