When my son and I went to see the movie version of Where the Wild Things Are something unusual happened. My seven-year-old son, who loves every single movie he sees (and watches them repeatedly), whether it’s Scooby-doo and the Monster Menace or The Golden Compass, declared, “That’s one I wouldn’t see again.”
This wasn’t the case of a children’s book being made into an adult movie as sometimes happens, because, strangely, I felt the same way. Often we complain about movies leaving parts of our favourite books out. But this time it was what was added to the movie—Max’s background story, imbuing the Wild Things with distinct personalities and creating conflict between them—that was disappointing. As one reviewer in the Globe and Mail said “[Maurice] Sendak’s poetically concise tale is stretched out into what feels like grief-counselling for Muppets.”
The beauty of Sendak’s book is that it isn’t defined. The reader, young and old, fills in the background details with their imagination, as their feelings see fit, expressing their own anger, their own frustration and their own ideas of what a “wild rumpus” is.
That’s why the book is so loved; what’s not in it is as important as what it is. And sometimes, as this movie proved, the mystery is better left alone.
