”I would say it’s a movie for adults first and for a certain kind of child second."
Spike Jonze spoke those words in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. The subject of that interview was his new film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's book, Where The Wild Things Are. The quote baffled me, because I think of Wild Things as a children's book, first and foremost.
After seeing the movie, I'm still a little baffled at what I saw. The film was beautiful and well-made, with a huge amount of depth and character, but it arguably catered primarily to the adult crowd. The film's opening weekend box office gross demonstrates this: Wild Things made $32.5 million, and 43 percent of the moviegoers who viewed the film were 18 and older, according to an MSNBC report.
On that note, let's take a quick look at the history of Pixar. This is a studio that has never made a bad film. Pixar has also never made a children's movie. They specialize in family films, which are named as such because the good ones are accessible to the entire family, not just children. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, WALL-E, Up, especially The Incredibles, these and more Pixar movies prove that somebody out there knows how to make something the entire family can watch and enjoy, too.
Where The Wild Things Are deserved this treatment. I'm not bashing on the film's quality. I think that Jonze more than accomplished his goal, if the aforementioned quote is any indication as to what that goal was. The question here is, was this an acceptable goal for a director adapting a children's classic like Where The Wild Things Are?
I'm going to be bold and say no. Regardless of the overall quality of Wild Things, I believe the kid factor is something to take into consideration. Let me pose a question: would a six-year-old understand that the Wild Things are representative of Max's emotions? Like Jonze said, maybe a special kid would, but I believe this character device would just confuse most kids.
That's not to say I'm not giving kids their credit. Children are surprisingly perceptive sometimes. But Jonze admitted openly that he did not make a movie for kids. My question is, why not? His vision came to fruition, but why didn't that vision include a more kid-friendly film?
For the record, I don't think this movie is too scary for kids. Sendak said in a featurette that he thought Jonze's film "respects kids." He also told worried parents to go to hell. The film doesn't feel dumbed down; it's even visceral at times, but kids grow up seeing much worse on television. I believe the bigger problem here is the confusion factor.
Whether Where The Wild Things Are is a fitting movie to take your kids to remains to be proven one way or another. I've speculated a lot, but I haven't actually talked to a kid who watched the movie. If any of you have talked to any kids who saw it, please post your and their thoughts, I'd be very interested to hear them.
All I'm trying to say is, Pixar seems to have the blueprints for making films with universal appeal, and I wish I could have some crazy psychic powers that would allow me to see what this film would've been like if Pixar had taken the helm. I do not believe Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are is a bad movie, I rather enjoyed it actually. I'm just a little disappointed that young kids probably won't get it.
In conclusion, here's a link to a clip that gives us a glimpse of what could've been. It's a YouTube video that I've posted before showing an early animation test for Where The Wild Things Are. Pixar legend John Lasseter directed the test footage, which was shot in 1983 when Disney had the rights to the movie. It's extremely intriguing, check it out.
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