As I watched this movie, I was a 10 YO kid again.
And as that 10 YO, I was mad because my mom and dad weren't married anymore, and my mom was spending time with another man.
I know some feel it's too violent for kids, but you know, it hurts to be that kid. It hurts, and out comes the anger, because anger is really sadness and fear in disguise.
My favorite scene is toward the end, after Carol, one of the monsters, has done something terrible, and Max surveys the scene. Your heart aches as you watch and know how upset Carol had to have been to have done it.
Max does something so very simple in response, and yet, it is exactly right. Kids and adults can both understand what it meant and why he did it. And it made me cry like a crazy person.
It took me back to this one time when I read a note my mom had written her boyfriend and left it on the counter. It started out "Dearest..."
I read that dearest to mean exactly that - no one dearer to her than him. I asked her, next time you write a note to me, will you please write Dearest Lisa?
What Max did was Max's way of writing - Dearest Carol. After all that had happened, he knew that's what Carol needed. And really, isn't that what we all need?
My takeaway from this simple, yet complex movie is this: More than anything, kids want to know their loved. No matter what - they are loved. We cannot tell them enough. We cannot show them enough.
I hope parents get that. And I hope some little Max's leave the theater feeling a little less alone in the world.
Wow, Lisa. I wasn't going to see the film because I was so afraid it wouldn't do justice to the book. How can you make a feature-length movie out of a picture book? But after what you have written, I will go and let the filmmaker give me his version of that incredible story.
ReplyDelete