Synopsis:
An adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's story, where Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world--a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.
The Freak's Rating: B- : There are many films generated every year that claim to have a window to children's souls. Sure, they may not come right out and say it as loudly as WTWTA, but every film that falls into the family genre attempts to make this leap and usually fails. The primary reason for failure is the lack of the film's ability to inspire those grownups in the audience to wish they were children again. The Neverending Story stirs up such emotion, The Goonies did the same. Family films are quite difficult to execute properly and though WTWTA isn't perfectly done, it takes a decent stab at the category.
Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo are the only two faces you may recognize and thank God for that. Casting a known entity as the lead character in the film would have only destroyed the aforementioned relationship between audience and protagonist, thereby rendering the film to wind up in a bargain bin within a year.
A little boy named Max Records plays Max and quite nicely carries out the demanding role. Having experience on only a couple films in the past, Records is beautifully innocent in every frame in which he appears. Having been an enormous fan of HBO's The Sopranos, I am a believer that James Gandolfini should retire, allowing his memory to have only one created character (well, maybe his role in Get Shorty as well) that lives on in cinematic history. His casting as the lead "wild thing", Carol, is an odd choice and though he adds heart to the role with his delivery, I kept expecting him to role out an F-bomb or two. His accent is ever present throughout the film.
WTWTA has some excellent moments where you are instantly taken back to being a child. It is in those moments, where I couldn't help but smile and thoroughly embrace the film. The sad part of the film is in its darker areas, in which it spends a tad too much time and falls a bit further than it should into seriousness. The script lags and veers off course a few times, not explaining the reasoning for doing so. I found these moments perplexing as I'm not used to having the element of mystery in a family film and felt it inappropriate.
There are multiple parallels we, as the audience, are supposed to mentally draw between the world Max creates and reality, but at times they feel forced. WTWTA is overall a good family film worthy of seeing for those who enjoyed the book, but parents should beware of taking extremely small children as it may inspire a few nightmares.
