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Spike Jonze is audacious. Who else would think they could turn a 10-sentence-long classic children’s book into a full-length film? Of course, taking it on is one thing, and succeeding is another. So does it succeed? Yes and no.
Jonze must have been delighted to find a boy to play Max who happened to be named Max—that’s just too good
And he does quite a good job in the role. The monsters that inhabit Max’s land are a wonderful mix of live-action puppets combined with CGI for the facial expressions.He’s obviously full of strange overpowering emotions, and he just doesn’t know how to deal with them.
Young Max’s world is one of pain and uncertainty—he doesn’t seem to have any friends; we see no evidence that Max’s father is a part of his life; his mom is a stressed single parent, but one who shows him genuine love; his sister’s friends bully him, and she breaks his heart by refusing to stand up for him. This last act sets Max off on one his angry tirades. He’s obviously full of strange overpowering emotions, and he just doesn’t know how to deal with them. When he pitches a fit in front of his mother’s date—including biting her—he is overwhelmed, and runs into the night.
Soon he finds himself in a land filled with creatures that share the same anxieties and fears he exhibits. One minute they’re threatening to eat Max, and the next minute they’re crowning him king because he promises he can “keep out the sadness.”
But Max isn’t up to the task. He thought he could make a perfect place if he only had complete control. But this world is crumbling, too. The monsters are seeing that he doesn’t have the powers they thought he did—and Max is seeing that maybe he's not ready to be king of his own world. And though they act as though they want a leader, the monsters don’t seem to be able to handle one. “I wish you guys had a Mom,” Max says at one point. Does this make him appreciate his mother—and the stability he gains from her presence—a bit more than he did? I think so.
As I’m writing this from a few days’ remove, I find I’m respecting the film more and more for how it was able to convey a genuine feeling of what a young boy must be feeling inside. But there are definite problems, as well.
The film is getting a bad rap for being a movie based on a kids’ book that probably shouldn’t be seen by kids. Lots of people disagree with the view that it’s not a film for kids—including the author of the book, Maurice Sendak—but they’re just wrong; there’s no way little kids should see this. First, it was slow. Really slow. I’m perfectly happy with minimal action as long as something’s happening and the story moves forward, but there wasn’t enough plot here to keep my 34-year-old self engaged—let alone a grade-schooler. Don’t tell me I’m too old or too removed to “get it,” or that I need to see it through a child’s eyes. That’s just an excuse to justify a plodding plot.
Second, it’s truly scary. There’s a sense of dread that permeates the entire film. When the monsters threaten to eat Max, I believed them. And there’s another tense scene where Max’s main alter-ego monster Carol gets so angry he pulls another monster’s arm off. Sand, rather than blood, comes gushing out, but I was shocked and surprised by it—and I fully expected some of the numerous grade-schoolers around me to burst into tears. That none of them did frightens me a bit.
I understand that fairy tales have been terrifying children for millennia—read the stories from the Brothers Grimm, and you’ll see that they’ve been revised over time to take the edge off. But this never felt like a fairy tale to me. Yes, it’s an unflinching look at how hard it is to be a child—but where’s the joy? I can only recall two moments of “joy” in the magic land, and they both involve violence. One is when the monsters pile on each other—and Max, who only escapes because he’s so small compared to them. The other is a dirt clod fight, where there’s smiling and laughing, but also pain and destruction. It’s weird.
And as well done as the monsters are, their dialogue sounds more like a therapy session from a group of dysfunctional adults than the personified feelings of a 9-year-old. Are they aspects of Max’s ego, or characteristics from adults around him—or both? I don’t know.
A final problem I had with the film was one of hopelessness. Early in the film there’s an odd scene—that’s brief but obviously important to the filmmakers—where Max’s teacher talks about how the Earth will likely be done in by the sun exploding. Rather than use the film to debunk this view or push against it, Jonze’s film seems to use this as a launching point for continuing the melancholy worldview.
In the end, Jonze’s film left me exhausted—not because I’d been on a thrilling ride through the ups and downs of being a kid again, but because the pace and lack of an interesting plot just made me want to grab my wooby and take a nap.
I would never let a small/young child see this film either. I wouldn't even allow older children to see it without having a follow-up conversation. The film was very dark and you pinpointed exactly what I was feeling after I left the movie: Hopelessness. The thing I appreciated the least was the abusive behaviour that was rampant in the film. His sister and her friends are abusive to him. Max is apparently abusive to his mom. (We get this from the scene where he bites her, and the boyfriend says that she shouldn't let Max treat her like that.) And the monster Carol is extremely abusive. In fact, the monster crew seems to be a typecast of an abusive family who hasn't learned how to properly cope with the abuse. KW keeps trying to leave, and continues to return, unable to stay away - eerily similar to a battered wife. Ira just keeps getting bullied and bullied. Carol rips off Douglas's arm, and no one really says anything. It seems like the abuse cycle just keeps getting perpetuated because it's ignored and not properly dealt with. Max's behaviour is abusive as well, and it doesn't seem to be dealt with in an appropriate manner. It seems like no one really deals with anything. Which is frustrating to me, and sets a terrible example for children, youth, and adults alike. For a film that seems like it's about a young boy, trying to deal with his extreme mood fluctuations, it never actually "deals with" anything. I realize that adding tedious dialogue - where the characters talk about what happened, and attempt to deal with the situation (or a psychologist character steps in or something) - would elongate the already inactive plot, but it would rectify the situation a little. If I were to do anything with this film, I might show it to a youth group, incorporated into a session/retreat on emotional management, used as an example of inappropriate emotional management. This film should never be viewed without debriefing kids.
Christy 4:11:04pm on 11/10/2009
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