'Wild Things' in good hands

Considering what Hollywood has done to Dr. Seuss (check out "The Cat in the Hat" with Mike Myers), fans of Maurice Sendak were right to worry about the movie version of "Where the Wild Things Are." The film is here, and judging by what's on the screen, they can rest easy: "Wild Things" was clearly put in good hands, those of director Spike Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers.

Jonze, 39, known for influential music videos (for Bjork, the Breeders, REM and others) and two critically acclaimed, surreally tinged films based on the writings of Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation"), stuck his neck out in accepting the "Wild Things" job. People have proprietary feelings about the 1963 Caldecott Award-winner, part of a trilogy of word-and-picture books that includes "In the Night Kitchen" and "Outside Over There," and these viewers will enter the theater with a show-me attitude.

The book, in a nutshell: Max, a boy in a wolf suit, is very naughty one night and is sent to his room without supper. He magically sails to an island inhabited by large humanoid monsters, the Wild Things, and he tames them and becomes their king. After a while he gets lonely, and sails home to find his supper waiting for him.

This is a live-action version, with Max Records as Max, Catherine Keener as his mom and Mark Ruffalo her boyfriend, a character not in the book. The Wild Things are actors in (big) costumes that are dead-on replicas of Sendak's drawings. Thanks to computer-generated facial expressions, Jonze and Eggers' script and the vocal talents of Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker and Paul Dano, the Wild Things have plenty of personality. They're like one big sort-of-dysfunctional family.

Jonze has strong ties to San Francisco, among them his friendship with Eggers. He came to town to talk about the film.

Excerpts from the interview:

Question: The book has fewer than 350 words. How do you make a feature out of that?