Reel Access

Director Spike Jonze has directed awesome critically acclaimed art-house films such as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation puts  his own unique spin of Maurice Sendak's beloved classic children story, "Where the Wild Things Are". Released on October 16th, I was anticipating this movie because like Jonze, Sendak's story is one of my favorites to date.

The classic story which would take you literally two minutes to read was adapted into an 98 minute film. The movie tells the story of an destructible boy named Max (Max Records) who is dealing with his mother (Catherine Keener) dating again and his sister who is quite distant from the family. I was taken away by Max Records performance as Max. Records was unbelievably natural and the glue to the whole entire movie. One thing  I would say is that this movie may be a adaptation of a children story, but it's no movie for a child.

The subject matter is way to mature for any child under 12 years-old to understand unless they are familiar with divorce. Max is completely unruly and is quite rude to his mother demanding her to feed him. I was wondering how Jonze was going to film Max going off to the island of the Wild Things, but did a simple way of introducing it. The movie's theme of emotional bonding and sticking together as a family flowed through Max's world and right into the monsters world.

James Gandolfini was breath taking as Carol, a monster who can't control his feelings. Gandolfini gave a emotional performance that made me cry while I was watching it. Paul Dano was also awesome as Alexander and Catherine O' Hara was an delight as Judith. This movie does brings out feelings that are raw that rings true in the real life. Maybe that's why this movie touched me so deeply because I know how Max feels. I can't wait to see more from Max Records. I enjoyed this movie despite the negative reviews from critics.