Uploaded October 2009 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
The typical way for Hollywood to make Maurice Sendak's book WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE into a movie would be to turn it into SHREK. It would be noisy and colorful, the wild things would fart a lot, there'd be some stupid quest to save the island or some princess, one wild thing would be voiced by Chris Rock or Queen Latifah, and the movie would end with Max, the little boy, learning some saccharine lesson about friendship and being yourself. And it would UTTERLY SUCK. Yet amazingly, director Spike Jonze was allowed to adapt the story HIS way, staying true to the book's tone of danger and rowdiness, while imbuing it with an unexpected and insanely clever emotional resonance that's made WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE my favorite movie of the year so far, and maybe the best movie about childhood I've ever seen.
For more ReThink Reviews, go here rethinkreviews.net
The typical way for Hollywood to make Maurice Sendak's book WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE into a movie would be to turn it into SHREK. It would be noisy and colorful, the wild things would fart a lot, there'd be some stupid quest to save the island or some princess, one wild thing would be voiced by Chris Rock or Queen Latifah, and the movie would end with Max, the little boy, learning some saccharine lesson about friendship and being yourself. And it would UTTERLY SUCK. Yet amazingly, director Spike Jonze was allowed to adapt the story HIS way, staying true to the book's tone of danger and rowdiness, while imbuing it with an unexpected and insanely clever emotional resonance that's made WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE my favorite movie of the year so far, and maybe the best movie about childhood I've ever seen.
For more ReThink Reviews, go here rethinkreviews.net
