Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Where the Wild Things Are. Dir. Spike Jonze. Warner Bros.
Legendary Pictures. Village Roadshow Pictures. Film. 2009.


In this movie a young boy named Max is bullied, by his sister’s friends, and dislikes his mom’s new boyfriend. As a child his emotions are rapidly changing, one minute he loves his mom for being his refuge, and the next he is screaming and biting her, because he is upset with her boyfriend. In a fit of fear and rage, Max runs away from his house goes into the woods by the lake and takes a boat to a far away island, where he discovers a tribe of monsters. He becomes their King, and they play for days, and build forts. However when the monsters find out Max was lying about being a king, they turn on him and he realizes he needs to go back to his house.

In this movie the director challenges the audience to see the inner workings of a child’s brain. The whole concept of the movie is that Max’s travels to island where the wild things are, is essentially his brain, and is where he can think and work out the problems in his own crazy way. He runs with his emotions like ocean, different tides different ebbs and flows of feelings and thoughts. But he the monsters each have a version of him. Working, playing, roaring, stomping with them is the path that leads to him discovering that he needs to be there for his family, no matter what, and he should be nicer to his mom. In the end of the movie he sails away from the island and returns to his true home.
The challenge is to try to understand a child’s mind, and give children more tolerance and respect when they are attempting to work a problem out.