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I really wasn't impressed. A lot of the kids in the theater were bored and asking to go home, so I wasn't alone. It seemed too grown up and dark.

I loved the book as a kid so I was really excited for the movie. I was looking forward to it ever since the first trailer came out. I was so disappointed! The whole movie was dark and sad and it left me feeling slightly depressed, not at all uplifting like the book. I'm glad my son is too young for movies or I would have taken him to it. If I had brought a child to this I would have been furious. Not only would a kid be bored to tears, I could see a lot of kids getting sad and/or scared. All in all, it's not a movie I'm going to recommend to anyone, and I'll certainly not be giving it a second viewing.

I loved it. I went into it knowing it wasn't going to be a kids movie, but rather a movie abut childhood. I thought the "real life" scenes were absolutely perfect in their portrayal of the daily existence of a 10 year old; how his mind works, how he relates to people, how he reacts to the world around him.... Very powerful.

I saw it on opening night with my husband, and no, it's not a young child's movie. However, I would absolutely recommend it to those who understand the themes.

I don't think people are realistic about the difference in media here. The book is the book; it has 10 sentences. Jonze and Eggers couldn't exactly build a movie around that, so they expanded the minimal narrative to actual dialog and conversations, fleshing out the source material for a completely different format and interweaving it with additional material, backstory, and psychological depth.

Just because a movie is dark and sad doesn't mean I can't recommend it. Hell, I always tell friends Sophie's Choice and Life Is Beautiful or even Grave of the Fireflies are worth SEEING although the subject is horrifying.

I disagree that the movie was not uplifting. Max realized what he missed, he went home. Big hugs all around, and the hero returned with a new understanding of the world. He could have ended up like Oedipus in some other version. ;-)

well, i brought my 5 1/2 year old daughter. I was very nervous about the first scenes, when he is throwing his huge fits and running away and all. (i had to remind my daughter, this is a good example of how not act). but when he gets to "where the wild things are", i thought it was very magical. she really enjoyed it and made fun of me when i cried.

I thought it was magical, I cried at the end. The soundtrack is beautiful! I bought it right away!

People were walking out of our theater- my husband and I were bored and regretting the fact that is how we spent the afternoon we had a babysitter...a little psychoanalysis is enriching- but not an entire movie of it. Yes, it capture certain aspects of childhood very well.

My mother loved the book. I grew up loving the book. My kiddos love the book (or my six year old does and my 1 year old must when she's a little older or she'll be sent to bed without eating anything). My son had a wild things party for his third birthday (complete with make your own wild things masks followed by rumpus).

Part of the genius of the book, for me, is the brevity of Sendak's narrative and everything it leaves out, the way he tells the story the way a child would with only the "important" (from their perspective) parts thrown in--all the blanks that that Jonze and Eggers must, because of the difference in media and the demands of an audience that wants a linear and complete narrative, fill in. I knew, from the beginning, that no major motion picture, no matter how "indie", could match, let alone improve upon, the book in that way.

I accepted it, and just decided to see the book and the movie as entirely separate entities with the same character and basic "plot." This allowed me not to hate the movie. I even enjoyed it (especially the soundtrack which is something else my kids and I can share)...but not as much as the book :)

My six year old, by the way, LOVED the film and even tricked his dad into taking him to see it a second time, so it's not too dark for every child.

we are huge book fans. i loved it. my husband loved it. our son loves it.

the movie as a whole is beautiful. the music is beautiful. the characters are good. they all have really great different personalities. the story was lacking a bit though and it was not really a kids movie. lots of kids in the audience were stirring and aiden (almost 6) asked to go home halfway through even though he seemed super excited while watching the trailers. i wasn't really expecting a disney/pixar style movie out of it. i still really liked it and think that in quite a few years so will aiden.

I would have liked the movie more if it was not do drawn out in the middle. I actually dozed off for about 10 mins, and felt that many of the key points could have been accomplished with less screen time.

We checked out the book a few times but never owned a copy, so my 18 year old son's great anticipation for the movie surprised me. He's a musician and the soundtrack is important to him.
He made himself a costume so beautiful he posted it on Etsy and sold six overnight. The week has been dominated by him sewing round the clock, ambitious to earn money and buy a motorcycle. I can't believe how short the time span from his first Halloween when I spent the day sewing his tiger suit to this Halloween, his last at home. He has delayed entrance to his college of choice and this fall has been a bittersweet time of having him here when I expected him to be gone already. I can't even watch the trailer of this movie without crying. It seems like the culmination of his childhood.

are you kidding? this movie is amazing. i guess if you knew absolutely nothing about it going in, and/or are not familiar with spike jonze's work, i can understand the surprise, but i did bring my four-year-old and he loved it. he wasn't bored for a moment. yes, it's sad and scary. it's okay for kids to experience those emotions, especially when sitting between mom and dad (or on mom's lap!). i wouldn't say every kid his age could handle it, but i knew he could and he loved it. he's asking to go back to the theater, and always wants to listen to the soundtrack.

i think a movie like this helps children develop empathy. in real life, it's hard for kids to grasp what someone else is feeling because they're too involved in the situation and are only experiencing their own emotions. when we become lost in a story we're reading or watch someone else's life play out on film, we feel what they feel, and what we learn can then be applied to real life. and when we really relate to the characters, it can help us understand ourselves better as well.

Doubledutch, I love what you said about being lost in a story. I will borrow my son's Max suit for my visit to my grandchildren and we will have a wild rumpus. I can't wait to read it with them. Sharing stories and discussing them is the sublime responsibility and pleasure of parenthhood.

Kate (NC), I hope my 7 month-old little man grows up to be as well rounded and amazing as your son. You should be proud, mama! Oh and about the movie...haven't seen it, but just watching the trailer and listening to the soundtrack makes me misty. It does seems like it's a movie about childhood (rather than for kids), which gives it a sense of melancholic nostalgia that gets me everytime.

I think my only issue with the movie was the fact that many of the characters wouldn't confront their problems. nearly every character was faced with an issue that was uncomfortable to them, and majority of the time they shoved it aside, rather than dealing with it. I know it's supposed to be a child's take on issues, but at what age do we expect them to be able to handle problems? I definitely don't have any problems showing my kids melancholy movies, as long as the message is clear, but this message, or quiet realization, only comes in the last 5 mins of the movie, and most of the time kids are asleep by then! I heartily agree that this film isn't necessarily meant for children, but I guess no one ever said it was . . .

The plot of this movie seemed like a rough first draft to me, not nearly fleshed out well enough to make a movie just yet. Some parts seemed so non sequitur that they were distracting. I thought that on a purely visual and audio level, it was gorgeous. The fort was almost worth the ticket price alone, just a really really cool idea. Beautiful light, beautiful design, faithful reproductions of the wild things themselves, of course rad soundtrack. But the story did not work for me at all.

The book is one of our most beloved favorites, and my oldest (now 8) son's cherished lovey was a stuffed blue wild thing, the one with horns, from birth until he was four. However, I knew they could never make a full movie and even try to simply reproduce the book. You can only watch this movie as a stand-alone entity, because you really can't compare the two.

I read reviews and decided that while I knew it wasn't going to be pure kid fare or anything, it would still interest my kids (8, 5 and 2) and probably give us some good things to talk about. I wish I had previewed it though. The reviews I read obviously didn't deter me from taking my kids, but I wish I hadn't. There is a scene where one wild thing rips off another wild thing's arm, and something comes pouring out. Everyone first thought it was blood, and then it was actually sand or something, but the damage was done, and all the kids were pretty freaked out. More disturbing to my kids, however, was the part near the very beginning, in which Max initially runs away. They were horrified. They cried because it was so sad and they hated the idea of just leaving your family like that. It was all very unhappy, and there really wasn't enough resolution, even at the end, to make it worthwhile.

I definitely don't think a movie has to be happy to be worthwhile, but I was really disappointed by this one. It wasn't even that sad to me because the story felt like it never got off the ground. There was a lot of emotion running around, but not much behind it. An emo art movie? Not a kid's movie. Not a me movie either.

PS, my nephew, age 6, also went to see it last week and is still having nightmares about it this week. So, you've been warned.

Just not interested. The book is perfect.