'Wild Things' faithfully adapts classic children's story

The problem with filmmakers taking an extremely short children's story and expanding it into a full-length feature film is that they're taking an extremely short children's story and expanding it into a full-length feature film.

Bo Welch tried it to disastrous effect in "The Cat in the Hat," based on the Dr. Seuss classic, starring an irritating Mike Myers in the title role.

Ron Howard fared a little better in another bloated Seussian adaptation, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas," saved by cutesy-poo Who makeup and Jim Carrey's over-wrenched Grinch portrayal.

Now Maurice Sendak's beloved 1963 children's book "Where the Wild Things Are" comes to the silver screen under the direction of Spike Jonze, whose previous work on two quirky Charlie Kaufman screenplays ("Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich") more than qualifies him to handle the darker edges of fantasy. (Sendak reportedly selected Jonze to direct this film after viewing "Being John Malkovich.")

Jonze's "Wild Things" possesses a lot of darker edges and deep crevices, more than you might remember in Sendak's original, 338-word tale of a punished, rebellious child with a fervid imagination.

Sendak's brief tale tells of little Max in a wolf costume who terrorizes his dog, gets in trouble with Mom for being rambunctious and is consequently dispatched to his room without supper.

Allowing his imagination to run wild, little Max dreams of sailing for a year or so to a deserted island where he meets the Wild Things, becomes their king and works out his anger issues and frustrations before returning to the comfort of his room.

Unlike most children's story adaptations where chunks of exposition, new characters and conflicts have been created to justify the feature length, Jonze's movie (written by Jonze and Dave Eggers) remains utterly faithful to its source by simply expanding on Sendak's ideas, instead of adding to them.

An impressive young Oregon-born actor named Max Records plays Max, not as a cute moppet from Hollywood central casting, but as a troubled, angry boy feeling rejected by his friends, unsupported by his older sister and ignored by his harried, single mother (Catherine Keener).

During a fight that goes far beyond Sendakian proportions, Max bites his mother and gets exiled to his room. Taking a cue from Dorothy Gale, Max runs away from home, inexplicably finds a sail boat and an entire ocean, then heads out to find the Wild Things.

When Max first meets the Wild Things ­- hairy, personable mountains of plushiness resembling the Muppets' Animal on steroids - they are not the people-eating monsters they claim to be, but lost little angry kids just like him, unhappy characters who dream of creating a utopian community constructed of elaborate stick-and-mud structures.

Sendak's Wild Things were anonymous, devil-like creatures. Jonze's Wild Things have personalities and names.

Carol (James Gandolfini in fine voice form) becomes pals with Max, even though he has a spat with female friend KW (Lauren Ambrose) who keeps threatening to leave him. Judith (voiced by Catherine O'Hara) is a depressive, down-in-the-mouth critter loosely coupled with the low-key, whining Ira (Forest Whitaker). Douglas (Chris Cooper), a birdlike creation, isn't a happy camper, either.

It took me a while to realize that "Wild Things" wasn't going to be a regular kids' movie with cheerful creatures and an easy-to-spot dramatic conflict with a villain.

Sendak's daring story was celebrated in academic circles for acknowledging and depicting children's anger in a positive, fantastical setting.

If Jonze pushes too hard to twist our tear ducts at the end (Dorothy's teary goodbye to the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow is 100 times more engaging), that's OK.

He has refashioned "Where the Wild Things Are" exactly as Sendak meant it to be: the story of a mad lad who dreams of being king of the Wild Things.

But in the end, he really just wants someone, even Mom, to love him.

"Where the Wild Things Are"

Rating: 3 stars

Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Cooper

Directed by: Spike Jonze

Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG. 100 minutes