I feel sorry for Max Records, the young actor charged not only with playing the imaginative protagonist but quite serendipitously his namesake in Spike Jonze’s forthcoming Where The Wild Things Are. It’s like the weight of the Global Financial Crisis combined with the untimely deaths of the 80’s most iconic culture merchants (Michael Jackson, John Hughes) has incubated the World’s supply of nostalgia, escapism and sentimentality and only one film, this film, can siphon the saccharine surplus. That’s a hefty burden for anyone to carry but a doe-eyed eleven year old with no acting experience? I envy him not. Hell no one save Barack Obama can relate to such levels of emotional investment from the world’s skinny jean wearing idealists.
Add to that the reverence with which the media discusses WTWTA and it becomes apparent that good is not enough. This film needs to be great. People need it to be great. And not in the way that Public Holidays or finding your keys is great. We’re talking Greatest Of All Time Great. I just married my dream girl great. Global Warming is just a myth great. It’s fricken’ raining Skittles great.
Because for all the expectation heaped upon WTWTA thus far it needs to be to future generations what its source material is to our generation – a game-changer, a future classic and a life-affirming ode to the power of following your dreams. I know, I know, that sounds cheesy as fuck but that’s what this film does to people. It makes them spout cornball dribble. Unashamedly. And no one has even seen it yet. You could attribute this fanaticism to the hipster wet dream that is the project’s cast and crew (Spike Jonze, Dave Eggers, Karen O, Katherine Keener, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini) or maybe it’s the plaintive orchestral surge in the most emotionally manipulative of Arcade Fire tracks, or quite simply, maybe it’s the universal appeal of Maurice Sendak’s beloved book. For whatever reason, Where The Wild Things Are has galvanized the masses with a just a trailer and the promise of cinematic catharsis. Blurgh! Sorry I just made myself vomit from typing that out.
Syrupy sentiments aside, as you can probably tell, I’ll look forward to seeing Where The Wild Things Are when it finally comes out in Australia and despite the unbearable expectation it carries and the hyperbolic praise one trailer has garnered – I know it will deliver. It simply has to.
Without further ado here is the second trailer for “Where The Wild Things Are”. Warning: If you get excited by anything remotely stirring, uplifting or goose bump inducing you’re probably gonna shit your pants.
