'Where the Wild Things Are' stands out for its unusually potent evocation of the timbre of childhood imagining, with its combination of the outre and the banal, grand schemes jumbled up with delicate feelings and the urge to smash things up.
Where the Wild Things Are
There's one in all of us.
2009 · 1h 41m · PG
Adventure, Drama, Family, Fantasy
Directed by
Spike Jonze
Overview
Max imagines running away from his mom and sailing to a far-off land where large talking beasts—Ira, Carol, Douglas, the Bull, Judith and Alexander—crown him as their king, play rumpus, build forts and discover secret hideaways.
Director and cast
- Spike Jonze Director
- Max Records as Max
- Catherine Keener as Connie
- James Gandolfini as Carol (voice)
- Lauren Ambrose as KW (voice)
- Catherine O'Hara as Judith (voice)
- Forest Whitaker as Ira (voice)
- Mark Ruffalo as Connie's boyfriend
- Chris Cooper as Douglas (voice)
- Paul Dano as Alexander (voice)
- Max Pfeiffer Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
[Jonze has] achieved with the cinematic medium what Sendak did with words and pictures: He's grasped something true and terrifying about love at its most unconditional and voracious.
Wild Things, you do not make my heart sing.
Intellectually interesting, visually arresting and filled with invention, there's just one crucial thing Where the Wild Things Are is missing: wildness.
Spike Jonze, we salute you.
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