We were pretty blown away seeing Where the Wild Things Are the other night -- not only by the beautiful visual pallette and dynamic camera work by director Spike Jonze and Lance Acord, but by the decidedly adult screenplay by Jonze and Dave Eggers. Apart from the fantasy of a nine-year-old boy hopping in a small sailboat to go party with some large, fuzzy creatures who are as scary as they are cute, this isn't really a kids' movie in our eyes. There may be one or two lessons to glean from it about social interactions -- namely about favoritism, loyalty, and letting new people in -- but it really felt like Eggers and Jonze wanted to use Maurice Sendak's beloved story as a canvas upon which to paint their own melancholy picture about the loss of innocence, the frailty of happiness, the fickleness of love, and the overall melancholy and loneliness that accompanies being a creature on one's own in the world. It's heavy stuff, and the 'wild rumpus' only lasts about five minutes before we're thrust into this darker, more difficult mood.

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