Where the Wild Things Are. Photo / Supplied Expand

Where the Wild Things Are. Photo / Supplied

Usually the problem with book-to-film adaptations is fitting it all in or knowing what to leave out. Not this time. Maurice Sendak's 1963 classic beloved children's picture book Where the Wild Things Are runs to just 338 words.

At the helm of the story is an adventurous 9-year-old boy, Max, whose imagination takes him to a faraway land where he can unleash his wild side and become king of the creatures inhabiting his somewhat scary world. The book, which has sold 19 million copies worldwide, resonates with children, and the child within us.

In the wrong hands, this sparse and sensitive story of a child's feelings of abandonment and displacement in the world could have resulted in another formulaic Disneyesque cliche. However, Spike Jonze, one of Hollywood's most original directors, who brought us Being John Malkovich, and Adaptation, has succeeded in making a thoughtful, darkly emotional fairytale-with-an-edge.

Playing with a classic was an anxious experience.

Says Jonze: "I was excited but really nervous about it because I didn't want to add something on to it, like a storyline or plot. I felt that anything I would add would just sound cheesy and I didn't want to ruin it. But finally I felt comfortable doing it when I started thinking about what the wild things are and what they would talk like and sound like.

Suddenly, out of that, everything tumbled and it felt like I could build from inside the book. It was imperative that I stayed true to it."

The creatures were voiced by actors including James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara, and Forest Whitaker, and the movie's live action stars include Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo. Max is played by namesake newcomer Max Records whose previous screen experienced extended to a Death Cab for Cutie video.

The director and his young star have similar recollections of the book.

Records: "I was a really big fan of the book. My parents started reading it to me when I was probably like one year old or something. It was probably my favourite book for a good portion of two, three, four years. It's not like the classic moralistic story. You do this, you realise what you did was wrong, you go home, and then you learn your lesson. It's different."

Jonze: "My mom read it to me when I was growing up. Even as I got older, at ages 8, 10, or 12, I'd go back to the bookshelf and I'd always look for it. I loved all of it - the drawings, the characters and the story. Part of it was the imagination and part of it was just Max being the king. The feelings he was going through were something that I related to and that's what I think was special about Maurice's work. He writes so honestly about childhood in this very poetic way and the drawings create these evocative visual poems in a language that kids understand. It's not pandering to a kid. It's being truthful about childhood." Jonze's efforts to turn the book into a film proved a journey almost as perilous as Max's.