The classic children’s book by Maurice Sendak comes to life in this live-action adaptation. If you’re like me and you grew up reading the book over and over during your free time at school, you’ll want to see this movie.

Director Spike Jonze truly brings the book to life. Rather than a page-to-page retelling of the story (the original story was too short for a feature length flick), Jonze fleshes out the story and concepts and brings with him an updated approach. And he does a stunning job. Visually, the movie is beautiful. The creatures look just like their original book-counterparts and convince us that they could exist in the real world.

Jonze makes a bold decision to take a much darker and adult perspective with the movie, which brings a strangely appropriate tone to the story. While it still follows the coming-of-age approach of the original book, it does so in a much darker way. The irresponsibility of Max and the Wild Things is almost painful, as they clearly demonstrate a lack of basic common sense and warped values. But the irrational reactions of the characters to seemingly trivial situations teach young Max the lessons and values he must learn to grow up.

If you’re expecting a nice, pleasant, delightfully funny movie, this is not it. While it could be billed as a children’s movie, it’s just as much (if not more) for adults. It takes deeper thought to appreciate the themes in the movie and, while it still holds that feel-good aspect to it, it achieves such an effect via a more adult approach. This movie is a must-see, if not for its lessons, at least for the amazing visuals bringing those old scary Wild Things we’ve dreamt about for so long to life!

Director Steven Soderbergh seems to have taken a leaf out of the Coen brothers’ book of comedies and made an ‘idiot’ film. The ‘idiot’ film is that genre that revolves around the actions of someone who doesn’t really have a clue, yet we still feel strangely supportive of the character (whilst laughing our heads off at the same time). The aforementioned Coens have used it in classics like Burn After Reading, Fargo, The Big Lebowski and Intolerable Cruelty. Soderbergh had one or two characters in Out Of Sight that would fit the mould, but the movie didn’t revolve around them.

In this one, Matt Damon (MATT DAMON!) plays the title role, an everyday guy with delusions of grandeur and a knowledge of pieces of random trivia. We are exposed to both through his voiceover as we watch his efforts to ‘help’ the FBI bring down his employers for price-fixing.

Soderbergh finds the perfect pitch for this film. Anytime I thought I might start to grow weary of the direction he took, he changed tack and kept me interested. And towards the end, when the actions of everyone start to unravel and expose themselves, there is a scene where we both watch Damon and listen to his thoughts – this for me was the crowning achievement of everything that had come before.

It’s a small film compared to projects like Traffic, Erin Brockovich and the Ocean’s films, but I think this may well be my favourite Soderbergh film to date.