Where The Child Things Are

Aug 13, 2010

Last night, with Bear finally home from his three week trip to America, we sat down for a family movie. I picked Where the Wild Things Are. My boys tolerate my love of “baby movies” and watch with me, and make up for it later by watching man-movies where everything blows up, and there’s lots of yelling.

I loved the book Where the Wild Things Are, and had read it more times than I can count, when Bear was just a wee cub. What surprised me was that he told me that when he was little, say around 4 or 5, he actually found the Wild Things a bit scary. I hadn’t remembered the book that way at all, and found the Wild Things charming and fun. However, while watching the film, I did think the Wild Things were quite scary! Especially the bit where they all jumped on top of Max and they slept in a “real pile”. (Got a bit claustrophobic there.)

In fact, although the movie was very well done and tugged on my heartstrings with a fantastic story, it didn’t have any of the sweet charm I found in the book. Instead it was somewhat dark and frightening. It made me wonder if the film was made for children at all, or if I was indeed the target audience: people who loved the book a long time ago, but they (or their children) had grown out of it.

I’m not actually sure if it’s time and perspective that have altered my impressions of the story, or if the book is, in fact, different from the movie adaptation. It has made me wonder if I was the only one who found the Wild Things of the book loveable! I can be a bit of a Wild Thing myself, maybe I could relate to their need for an occassional rumpus.