I wish I could say there aren’t many movies that make me cry, but that would be a blatant lie. I am an emotional person, and I know that, but nothing reminds me more than watching “Where the Wild Things Are,” released in 2009.

Directed by Spike Jonze, adapting Maurice Sendak’s original childhood picture book published in 1963, this movie is the best movie adaptation of any piece of literature I have ever seen, and I stand by that. 

The book is for children and essentially tells the story of a child acting out, being sent to bed without dinner, and then dreaming of a forest filled with wild things that he becomes king of, to later return home and find his dinner still warm. The movie, however, is much deeper. 

A funny anecdote: I actually got banned from watching this movie by my loved ones because, once I watched it, I cried so hard I threw up. For my last birthday, my mom actually bought me the original stuffed animal collection of “Where the Wild Things Are” monsters off eBay, which were released in the 1980s, so there’s my background as a connoisseur in this topic, I suppose. 

Now onto the plot: obviously, the original children’s story is short and does not provide complete direction for a full-length movie. This brings the director to the opposite end of a problem most adapters face: usually, there is too much information, and some context must be cut, but in this scenario, an entire world had to be built. 

The monsters themselves seem way too realistic for this movie to be produced in 2009, but I credit much of this to Jim Henson, who is one of my biggest inspirations. Henson was the original designer of The Muppets and a trailblazer in puppetry, and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop designed and constructed the huge, 50-to-70-pound animatronic suits for the creatures. These suits allowed actors to perform on set and were later enhanced with CGI for facial expression. 

In addition, the soundtrack is beautiful and heartwrenching, and I often listen to it on my own time. Karen O and the Kids deliver a raw sound that perfectly matches the power and emotion in every scene.

The scenery and setting provide rich context for each character’s inner struggles. The wide, windswept island landscapes mirror the exposure everyone feels, especially since the only way on or off the island is by water. The fort they built out of sticks, although large and ambitious, feels temporary, like a child’s attempt at a home out of popsicle sticks and glue. 

I’ll get into some brief spoilers down here, so if you’re interested in watching the film with a clear mindset, I recommend looking away at this point. 

At the beginning of the film, the audience is introduced to Max’s troubled home life, a struggle many children face. His sister is outgrowing him and doesn’t want to hang out anymore, and her new friends make fun of Max and destroy his igloo, which he spent hours working on. Later, the viewer sees that his mother is distracted with work and dating a seemingly new man, leading Max to rebel and refuse to eat dinner. 

After a fight with his mother, he bites her, and she screams at him, saying, “Max, that hurt!” before he stares at her and begins to sob, running away – which, to me, perfectly culminates the feeling of knowing you did wrong as a child, but also knowing you have no way to adequately control your emotions at the time, so all you can do is lash out. 

Max runs away and sails a boat to an island filled with wild things, who first threaten to eat him, but then decide to declare him king. The creatures desire someone to fix them and their struggling relationships: Carol, volatile, wounded, and missing KW, believes Max can keep everyone together. KW is distant, quietly seeking connection elsewhere with two birds whose language the other monsters cannot understand. 

At first, Max leads with ambition: they build a new fort, declare they will make their own rules, and stage a wild rumpus: a party culminating in destruction and catharsis. 

Max governs them exactly as a child would; he promises perfection. He insists everyone will be happy, and refuses to admit he doesn’t know what he’s doing. When the group begins to fracture, the fantasy kingdom mirrors his real home life, and that is the moment that he realizes that his mother cannot control anything more than Max can control the wild things. 

By the time Max chooses to leave, he recognizes that ruling the wild things means confronting the same emotional chaos he tried to escape at home – and he can’t unrun his issues, or else they will follow him. 

He sails back home and sees his mother waiting, dinner still warm, mirroring the book in that aspect. 

Many adaptations compress novels, losing nuance. This film does the opposite; it takes a children’s allegory and turns it into a rumination on childhood, growing up, anger, and the lack of control one has in life. 

It’s technically a children’s movie, but I have enjoyed it on multiple rewatches every year since my first time seeing it as a child. It taught me so many lessons, but most of all, that even if running away seems desirable, the problems I am so afraid of will always catch up to me. 

I rate this film 10 monsters out of 10 – and if you’re in the mood to cry, but not in a bad way, go watch “Where the Wild Things Are.”