Less is more | 12 December 2009

Where the Wild Things Are
PG, Nationwide

Here is what you most need to know about this film: it isn’t a patch on the book. Usually, I wouldn’t put it like that. Indeed, as I have said before, and wouldn’t need to say again if only I could trust you had paid attention the first time, a film should stand or fall on its own merits, regardless of the source material, but I can’t seem to let it go with this one. Perhaps it’s because I’m just too close to this particular book. I grew up on Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, which was first published in 1963, as did my own son, who insisted I read it to him nightly for about a year. I didn’t mind. It is short, just ten sentences, which is always good, and the alternative might have been The Big Book of Tractors, which was big, and full of tractors, can you believe.