With fires a-blazin' in the Medford manholes, we decided to hole up in the movie theater and see Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are." While we both had positive experiences, we felt differently about the film. So for the first time, the Bad Samaritans will give you (drum roll please) our first article with contrasting takes on a film.
Zach's take: Though I thought "Wild Things" was an artistic and aesthetic triumph, I don't think it can be considered a children's film because it was not kid-friendly. Kids venture to the cinema for adventure, laughs, animated characters, fun and candy. While "Wild Things" may have delivered some of those qualities, the film as a whole was dramatic, action-packed and a little frightening. To me, it seemed like Jonze constructed a tribute to childhood, targeting the people who grew up with Maurice Sendak's eponymous book as their bible.
Now, I don't claim to have a portal into the minds of young children, but I have a 10-year-old sister, Abby, and I still play with Legos. After contemplating her movie-going experience, Abby revealed her expert, concise opinion, admitting that the film was "a teeny bit" scary.
At one point in the film, Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), a hungry wild thing, chases Max (Max Records) through the forest vowing to eat him up. Next, in a fit of rage, Carol tears off the arm of another wild thing. Not since Tufts lost $20 million to Bernie Madoff has anyone been ripped off that badly (ba-zing!).
Furthermore, though there were a couple of laughs (I giggled at the thought of Catherine Keener bagging the much younger chick-flick guru Mark Ruffalo), the film seemed more cute than funny. I believe children would not understand the poignant representations of adolescence that made me smile rather than chuckle.
At 111 minutes, the film has several dry exchanges that will leave kids dazed and confused. So, for those of you with younger siblings, cousins or friends (that would be a little creepy, though), if you're going to the movies with a child to see a film based on a children's book, I urge you to head towards "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" (2009).
You know you wanted to see it anyway, but you never had the right excuse.
Chris' take: I think that we don't give kids enough credit. As a wee lad, I was into the Disney scene. When I turned five, I had a Sleeping Beauty-themed birthday party replete with a pin-the-tale-on-the-Maleficent-Dragon game. That doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy adult movies. I remember enjoying all of "Titanic" (1997), not just the special effects-laden finale. My VHS copy of "Forrest Gump" (1994) was destroyed by countless viewings. While I admittedly lacked the historical know-how to get all the references, I got the film's love-story core and Forrest's goofy friendship with Lt. Dan and Bubba.
While kids may not appreciate the existential quandaries and neuroses of "Wild Things," they will be able to identify with the protagonists' need to feel happy. No, kids won't analyze Carol's attachment to K.W. (Lauren Ambrose) and Max's relationship to Claire (Pepita Emmerichs) with a Freudian fervor, but they will be able to relate to the dirt-clod war and the snowball battle.
As for the movie not being "funny enough," I don't equate kid-pics to comedies. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" (1937) has very little humor, unless you consider seven sexually repressed, coal-mining midgets funny. Also, scary is not all bad in kiddie films. Think about "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993). Santa Claus gets kidnapped and locked in a basement by a Buffalo Bill-esque Boogie Man. I remember being freaked out, but that's the thing: kids like getting scared. "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" (1997) was rated TVY7, but that didn't stop me from joining the Midnight Society every Saturday night on SNICK.
Many claim that the movie is too long, scary, melancholy and complex for kids to appreciate. Some will claim that Jonze made a $75 million arthouse film for hipsters. They'll say that it's a good movie but the wrong one. My question to those naysayers is: What would they have preferred? Pop-culture references and fart jokes? The wild things aren't Shrek and Donkey, and they don't need to be. There are plenty of musically-inclined anthropomorphic animals in other films out right now. I say, give kids some variety in their films. The kids — and we kids at heart — deserve better.
Though we have dissenting opinions about the appropriateness of the film, we do agree on one thing. "Wild Things" is an evocative, emotion visual experience that will make you reminisce on your childhood days of yore, when you could frolic in the sandbox, play with your Barbies or Creepy Crawlers and chow down on the typical feast of Spaghetti-Os and PB&Js. So, see the film, think about your own youth, and let us know who you think is right.
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Zach Drucker and Chris Poldoian are sophomores who have not yet declared majors. They can be reached at Zachary.Drucker@tufts.edu and Christopher.Poldoian@tufts.edu, respectively.
