Wild thing

How difficult would it be to produce a 97 minute film from the wispy threads of a ten-sentence book? The DVD adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s much-loved children’s tale Where the wild things are is one attempt.
It is the story of troubled nine year-old Max. In the film's early scenes – we get the tone of Max’s existence – on a snowy day, the spoiled and stubborn Max builds an igloo on the footpath near his house. When Claire his older sister and her teenage friends arrive, Max throws snowballs at them and a snowball fight ensues. Max retreats to his igloo, but the teenagers jump over it and destroy it. The upset Max tracks snow through Claire's room and trashes his present to her.



His mother seems more interested in her boyfriend, so Max, not getting what he wants, throws a tantrum, biting his mother and runs away from home wearing his wolf-suit. Max not only runs away physically, but runs toward a world in his imagination. He sails off in a small boat to a remote island inhabited by large wild beasts. Using his ability to improvise tall tales, he has them believing that he’s a king of a distant land, with special powers. Instead of eating him they befriend and make him their leader. Max yells "let the wild rumpus start" and the wild things and Max dance and run around the forest destroying things.
Wild Thing Carol (of similar temperament to Max) shows Max his secret hideaway (really Mount Arapiles), where he has built a miniature of the island. Max and the Wild Things agree to build a large fortress of rocks and sticks, but tension mounts between Max and the Wild Things when they begin to think Max isn't a good king. They have a dirtball fight where the Wild Things get injured. Discovering he isn't a king and has no powers, Max decides it's time to go, he sails home where his mother welcomes him with open arms and feeds him.
This plot is similar to the original book, but while it was definitely a kids book, this film is directed at a teenage/adult market, ‘specially as it is rated PG, but I’m not sure it has hit the mark. Would teenagers recognise the angst and relationships the characters encounter?

The wild things are the true stars of the film. The creatures are portrayed by actors in 6-8 foot tall costumes, with additional animatronics and computer-generated faces created by the Jim Henson Company. The film builds a vivid, startling world of forests and deserts, filmed in Victoria as it offered all the locations required (sand dunes, ocean views, green and burnt-out forests, and mountains) – with a couple of scenes of Carol’s hideout at Mount Arapiles– and the world was part-built in Pomomal. The fake trees and rocks used and abused by the characters were built of polystyrene at Pomonal.

(Newspaper articles from the Wimmera Mail Times)

It has its web presence

Where the wild things are was published back in 1963, it won the Caldecott Medal the next year. In 2009
Dave Eggers wrote the screenplay for the film and the adults book The Wild Things. The book adapted from the original has even more facets (it has Max’s parents divorced, with his immature & romantic father living in the city).
Just a couple of trivia points:
* Though their names are not mentioned in the book, Maurice Sendak named the Wild Things after his aunts and uncles
* When Max is standing on a pile of books in his room, the spine of one of them is Where the Wild Things Are.