It's a hard job, being king in the land of ids

[larryhammer]

I'm still thinking about the movie of Where the Wild Things Are. First and foremost, it's not a film of the book but a film that uses the book as a source text for plot and imagery, which are then deeply transformed. It's gorgeous, emotionally intelligent, and refuses to explain things, especially not didactically -- all pluses. And the wonderfully (almost painfully) expressive monsters are technical masterpieces.

But I have to wonder just who the audience for this is -- both intended and practical. Even though it's about learning to cope with pre-pubescent emotions, I can't escape the conviction that it's not a movie for children. So much of what's going on seems to require hindsight to understand. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm misreading it, but it seems to me that it's really a movie for twentysomethings and those early thirtysomethings who are trying to come to terms with this whole adulthood thing.

Which may in fact be the point of the perfectly timed knock-knock joke.

I think I like it. But as I said, I'm still thinking. Anyone else seen this?

(Heh. Spellcheck wants to change thirtysomethings to tiresome. Oh really?)

---L.

Comments

[harvestar.livejournal.com]

I've also heard that it's a movie that celebrates the book people grew up with. (as in twenties and thirtysomethings who read the book as a kid and remember it fondly)

somehow, it was a book I missed as a kid. Perhaps it was too much "boy book"?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Everyone I know who took their kids to it ended up with bored or upset kids. But college age people and above rave about it.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

It's not, imho, a movie for kids at all. It is, in its way, a movie about childhood.

[larryhammer]

There -- that's what I was trying to say, only ended up circling around it ...

[ecbatan.livejournal.com]

I was disappointed by the movie, and not only because I love the book. I thought the movie intelligent enough, but not in control of its pace, nor really of its characters, who (at least on the island -- the scenes at home are better) came across to me as caricatures, and rather obvious ones.

A well done movie in many ways, but not really a success.

And not at all a movie for kids.

My mother tells me it was the first book they bought for me. I certainly remember reading it quite often -- and I read it dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times to my own children. But I confess I don't remember it being my first book. (The two I remember are a nicely illustrated version of Hans Christian Andersen's TIN SOLDIER (with those illustrations that move when you move the page), and a copy of Dr. Seuss's HORTON HEARS A WHO -- for obvious reasons, and obviously a gift of my paternal not maternal grandparents!)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Spellcheck wants to change thirtysomethings to tiresome.

Ha! Bit judgmental of it.

(Haven't seen Wild Things. Was psyched, but then heard really mixed reviews and--I would not cope real well with a lackluster adaptation of this one. So.)

[larryhammer]

I suspect some of the reviews come from expectations of either something closer to the book or something for children, which this is neither.

---L.

[tiangun.livejournal.com]

"Publisher have to know that editor, imposer and proofreader are different persons, and Word Spellcheck is not a person at all"
Russian translators' joke.

[larryhammer]

Heh. There's a similar joke that goes around the back offices of English language publishers.

---L.