As I watched the new movie “Where The Wild Things Are” a week ago, I was amazed at how often people are just like little kids; for example, 9-year-old Max.
Spike Jones said in a Houston Chronicle article, “It was coming at [the problem] from a very different place. There wasn’t an easy moral in that book. . Our movie might have the same problem, it’s not a movie with a simple solution. It’s more of a movie about what it feels like to be 9 years old.”
I think Jones really captured this well. And while we see the 9-year-old who makes up stories about vampires biting buildings and having a dirt clod war with teams of good guys and bad guys, we also see how we can act and think just like a child too.
We all feel betrayed at one time or another, much like Max did when his sister didn’t stick up for him after her friends destroyed his igloo. As Max teared up on screen, I felt a little pang as the point was driven home: I sometimes am just like Max. We feel hurt and want to enact revenge only to discover we’ve stooped to the other’s level and immediately regret the consequences. Max’s later story to his mother about vampires reflects how deeply he feels rejected, something, it seems, he will not get over easily.
Last week before RUF, Johnson Thomasson gave a review of the movie. His insight was really wonderful and brought out a clear message.
“The Wild Things are Max’s imaginative extension of himself and his family. He projects his own feelings onto them,” he said.
This much I think is quite apparent to anyone who’s seen the film.
“Interestingly, the first thing the Wild Things do is confess their desire for a king to come and rid the world of sadness and loneliness. Max is 9 years old, and he intuitively knows that the world is not as it should be. Something is broken inside of himself and in the world he lives in. He craves perfect community with those around him, and he knows only a king can make that happen,” Thomasson said.
What a strong message that conveys! How often do we long for someone or something to come and fix this broken, messed-up world around us because we know we can’t do it alone?
We become worried by things we can’t control, much like Max worries about the sun dying. Carol’s response, though comical, is reassuring: “You’re the King! And look at me! We’re big! How can guys like us worry about a little tiny thing like the sun?”
This, of course, is untrue, but the point remains: There is no sense in worrying about things you can’t control. Maybe the sun will burn out one day and cause everyone to die, and maybe it won’t. Dwelling on the ifs won’t change anything.
Max tries to be a good king by coming up with a plan for an awesome fort. He thinks this will make the Wild Things happy. We later see the flaw in this plan. If people don’t love and trust each other, no building – amazing or not – is going to change that.
It is so easy to put our trust in things. We think, “If I just had a lot of money, I’d feel good about things.” Or, “If I just have that car, I’ll be happy.” In the end, can those things really satisfy us? They are temporal and fleeting. You can lose money in the stock market or when the dollar value drops again, and cars will break down and rust. Meaningful relationships, which build you up and keep you connected, will make you happy.
We are afraid we’ll be replaced by others, much like KW tries to fill the gap between her and Carol by spending time with Bob and Terry. When we get hurt by people, it’s so easy to fill that gap in our lives with new people or new hobbies. Ultimately, however, only repairing those once-solid relationships will make things better. Anything else is just picking scabs off old wounds.
Douglas is the only one who sees Max for what he is (or at least the only one who speaks up): “He’s just a boy pretending to be a wolf pretending to be a king.” Like Max, we fear others will see through our pretending and not like us for who we really are. So we deny the truth when it is put to us. We think if we pretend to be something else, then we can’t be hurt. This is why Max pretends to be king. But the end looks just like the beginning, with the Wild Things surrounding Max and thinking about eating him. Whether king or boy, the situation didn’t change much.
We have a hard time putting our trust in other people, much like Max hesitates before getting into KW’s mouth. Is she trying to help him? Or eat him? Max was hurt before by his sister and mother. He lost his trust in them, not knowing whether they wish to hurt him or just love him. The scene with KW is much the same – he wants to trust KW, but he is afraid.
And, like Max, we all have the tendency to hurt the people we love. It’s not always on purpose; sometimes just a fit of rage, confusion or shock. We don’t know what else to do so we lash out at others (“I’ll eat you up!”). Then of course we feel bad, but sometimes find it even more difficult to apologize. We fear the person we hurt may choose to eat us, so to speak, much like Max worried Carol would do. Hopefully, when we are finally able to seek forgiveness, the people we’ve hurt, like Max’s mother, can go on loving us anyway knowing that one day they too might need absolution.
If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I hope you go see it soon. It was beautifully filmed and is chock-full of truths hidden as a story. There is a lot to gain from the experience. By the end, I think you’ll agree there’s a Max in all of us.
Hannah Kaase is a senior majoring in animal and dairy science. She can be contacted at [email protected].