Whether you’re a film buff, a lover of classic literature or just someone with fond memories of your childhood, everyone above a certain age has a soft spot for Maurice Sendak’s highly adored, critically acclaimed children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. Just picturing the book’s cover, gorgeously illustrated by Sendak himself, depicting the giant grey horned monster with his eyes closed and the sailboat sailing off in the distance brings me back to life as a toddler. A life when I wasn’t even able to read yet, but still paged through the book night after night anyways. The book was published way back in 1963 and is still considered one of the best children’s books of all time and a staple in American literature.
The simple story revolves around a young boy named Max who, after causing mischief while dressed in a wolf costume, is sent to bed without any dinner by his mother. Furious, Max locks himself in his bedroom and transports himself to magical land where he walks among giant beasts known as wild things and graciously becomes their king. And now, over forty-five years later, Sendak’s timeless story of a child’s imagination and the personality that fuels it is being brought to the big screen as a feature length film despite the fact that the book itself only contained a little over ten sentences, a mere Legendari 338 words.
The challenging task of adapting a book like Where the Wild Things Are and bringing it to the silver screen comes courtesy of the uniquely talented Spike Jonze, the film’s director. With this film being only his third directorial effort (the first two being the great Adaptation and Being John Malkovich), Wild Things is without a doubt the innovative director’s most elaborate and highly publicized, mainstream film to date. As well as directing the film, Jonze also co-wrote the script with screenwriter/novelist David Eggers (Away We Go).
Despite being adapted into a feature, the film stayed relatively similar to the outline of the book. Obviously the casting of Max, the mischievous young boy who the story revolves around, was a crucial step in making the movie and it resulted in a search that lasted well over a year. Knowing that the entire film would be anchored by this child’s performance, Jonze was very specific in finding an actor. “I wanted a real kid-not necessarily an actor who was going to give a ‘movie kid’ performance, but someone who was going to give a real, emotional performance.”
Oddly enough, the found the perfect kid to play Max, and his name was Max. Max Powers, the 12-year-old newcomer from Portland whose only previous acting gigs before Where the Wild Things Are were music videos. Despite his lack of experience, however, the young fella has been getting rave reviews for his portrayal of the story’s imaginative lead character and has even been called “the heart of the movie.
Olasto 