The wild things

We took the kids tonight to a preview screening of Where the Wild Things Are, with a discussion between Dave Eggers, who wrote the screenplay, and the actor, Max, and a party afterward sponsored by our friend Wil. While both kids were engrossed and said that they liked it, and the film has many moments of striking beauty, it is really not a children's film. It's hard to say exactly what it is. It is an arthouse film that kids could watch, not entirely to their edification. The interactions among the wild things are rather urban, and subtle, and maybe not of the satisfying universality that marks timeless children's literature and film. Eggers has turned the story into something closer to a Lord of the Flies of the inner-city thirty-something set.

Although the creatures are enormous, troubling, troubled-- even mentally ill--, violent and of uncertain goodness, Eliot was much more comfortable when the story moved past the intense emotional problems of Max's family (she whimpered throughout the family scenes) and entered the fantasy domain.