A movie to go ‘Wild’ for

Maybe the wildest thing about “Wild Things” is that it got released like this.

Instead of ruining another beloved children’s book with the usual kids movie compromises — cliche plotlines, broad comedy and overadrenalized spectacle — Bethesda native filmmaker Spike Jonze was allowed to cultivate allegorical poetry for the big screen out of author Maurice Sendak’s 10-sentence classic “Where the Wild Things Are.”

It reportedly cost $80 million and may alienate the mass family audience with its melancholy mood, occasionally inscrutable dialogue and disorienting psychological resonance. But it’s not really my job to judge the commercial prospects of a venture. Rather, it’s my job to tell you that arty director Jonze (“Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation”), his co-writer Dave Eggers and a talented cast and crew have achieved something imaginatively bold and unique. They’ve attempted to capture the deep feeling essence of childhood in a visually stunning but muted fantasy that, indeed, may not be accessible to all children (or to all adults, either).

I found myself alternately awed, bored, baffled and — in the last scene, especially — unexpectedly affected by the slowly paced succession of strange, beautiful images.

Where are the wild things? Why, they are inside the confused 9-year-old Max (Max Records). He acts out his rage, neediness and isolation when his single mother (Catherine Keener) rejects his attentions one night to focus instead on her new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo). In metaphor brought to life, the boy’s untamed emotions are unleashed in the form of a menagerie of giant, grotesque monsters in a faraway, brown woodland.

Wearing his grungy wolf costume, Max becomes their animal king. His mandate is to try to make happy the morose creatures and make sense out of their complicated, very humanlike relationships so they won’t (literally/figuratively?) consume him. They have a wild rumpus. They build a massive fort. They play at war by hurling dirt clods at each other — until somebody gets hurt. Life is far from a joy ride as Max tries to manage temperamental Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) and the similarly neurotic others (voiced by Catherine O’Hara, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano and Forest Whitaker)

With facial expressions created by CGI, performers in huge, amazing puppet suits animate the 1963 book’s famous make believe characters. They take the cartoonishness out of fairy tale. And for adventurous moviegoers of any age, these “Things” — like our own freaky, ugly emotions — shouldn’t be avoided.