It makes me sad when people “don’t get” Spike Jonze’s interpretation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. I personally loved the movie and anyone who’s read the book know that it leaves a lot of room for artistic expression.

It’s definitely not your conventional, Pixar-esque flick, it was made for adults who grew up with the book and not primarily intended for children. The movie itself is dark, strange, disturbing and sad at times, but all of that fits with the turmoil that Max is feeling, it also has humourous scenes at the right time. I related to his loneliness and feeling of abandonment a lot… not necessarily by my parents for the latter, but rather by people I thought I could trust. The way the characters interacted with each other was very close to children’s conversations and responses to certain situation.

I saw it twice already, the second time around it brought certain emotions that weren’t there the first time; I actually felt like a kid watching all the characters running wild and howling their lungs off. I was a very lonely child, I didn’t have any siblings, and my over-protective parents didn’t let me go over to any of my friends’ places. I had my world with imaginary friends, we went on adventures, we’d fight and laugh, and build forts (yo, I was a tomboy). It’s not a perfect movie, but it did a great job bringing me back to my childhood imagination.

Also, Maurice also tells worried parents to go to hell. Amazing!