On Tuesday night the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor hosted a special pre-release screening of “Where the Wild Things Are,” with all proceeds going to the non-profit writing and tutoring organization 826 Michigan. Before the screening there was a Q&A with the film’s screenwriter Dave Eggers, best known.
As the editor of “The Best American Nonrequired Reading” series. Eggers founded 826 National in San Francisco in 2002. Since then, the organization has expanded to six other chapters with a location on Liberty Street in Ann Arbor.
The group is “dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.”“The amount of stuff that 826 Michigan does here and in Ypsilanti is astonishing given they only have two paid staffers,” Eggers said.
The group has close to 900 volunteers, many of which work one-on-one with children both during and after school to help them with homework and their own writing. Several books written by 826 students were on sale in the lobby.
Before the lights went down Eggers briefly discussed his experience working on the film.
“I never had intended to write a screenplay, when Spike Jonze called and asked if I would co-write it with him,” Eggers said.
Jonze had been chosen to make the film by author Maurice Sendak, who wrote “Where the Wild Things Are” in 1965. According to Eggers, Sendak had turned down numerous ideas other directors had to turn the book into a film, but was confident in Jonze.
“[Spike Jonze] is the perfect guy to do this because he has a lot of kid in him still,” added Eggers.
At first, Jonze might seem like an odd choice to direct a kid’s movie, considering his last two films were Charlie Kaufman’s “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich.” But really, “Where the Wild Things Are” isn’t the kid-friendly film many people will be expecting.
The beginning of the movie sets the tone for the rest of the film, and it’s surprisingly emotional.
Jonze is not subtle with his depiction of main character Max’s tumultuous relationship with his family.
This is clearly a young boy who has receded into the depths of his imagination because reality is too difficult to deal with. Most kid’s movies would downplay this aspect or pad it with humor. Jonze puts it right upfront.
“Where the Wild Things Are” is really a film about innocence and the complexity of being a child in a world of grown-ups. After seeing the film I almost wish Jonze had written an original story instead of using such an iconic source.
Most book-to-film adaptations face the challenge of having to pick and choose which parts of the book to include in the film version. Jonze and Eggers had the unique problem of expanding a ten sentence book into a ninety-minute movie.
This ultimately proved to be the film’s biggest obstacle. Given how short the source material is, it’s understandable that Jonze and Eggers were more or less on their own to fill in most of the details, but what they add almost seems to overshadow the original book’s charms.
One of the main reasons people have fallen in love with Sendak’s book over the last four decades is because of the sense of wonderment and adventure captured in every page. It’s this crucial element the film is sorely lacking.
Once Max sails to the land of the Wild Things what he discovers feels surprisingly bland. The Wild Things themselves are more eccentric than wild, with the same emotional baggage and character flaws we have—the only difference is they are seven feet tall and have horns.
With help from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop the film-makers did a great job of bringing the Wild Things to life with animatronics and puppetry, but unfortunately the film only captures the aesthetic qualities of the monsters, not the heart and soul they were so clearly trying to depict.
Even the scenes of dancing and howling feel less than compelling, and despite some elaborate set-designs and exotic locales the Wild Thing’s world never felt magical.
It almost feels as if, in their attempts to make an emotionally-driven film, Jonze and Eggers forgot to make a movie that is actually fun. After the screening people weren’t flooding out of the theater with grins on their faces having watched an entertaining fantasy adventure. “Where the Wild Things Are” is actually kind of a downer.
But ultimately I have to give Jonze and Eggers credit for getting this film made at all, considering they adapted a classic children’s picture book into an emotional character-driven drama. It definitely wasn’t an easy sell to the studio, and you have to applaud Jonze for staying true to his vision even when the studio was forcing him to do re-cut after re-cut.
Despite all of the film’s problems I still managed to have a good time, but I just couldn’t help but think Jonze and Eggers had missed the point of the original story. My fondest memory of the book is spending hours absorbing every tiny detail of Sendak’s illustrations and dreaming that I was Max, living in the incredible world of the Wild Things—and I really hoped this film would give me that same feeling. Unfortunately, I never once had this reaction.
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