Where the Wild Things Are (opera) Wild Things should be played by dancers on stage with singers (amplified) off-stage". Max is a rambunctious boy who dresses in a wolf suit. After he throws a tantrum, Mama (his mother) confines him to his room. Max then escapes in his dreams to a forest, and then to the island of the Wild Things. The Wild Things eventually hail Max as their king, and the "coronation" culminates in a frenzied dance, the Wild Rumpus. In the course of the Rumpus, Tzippy, the female Wild Thing, loses her head, which causes Max to halt the Rumpus. At the end, the
Where the Wild Things Are (film) Yorker" saying, "I have a vision of eight-year-olds leaving the movie in bewilderment. Why are the creatures so unhappy?" Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com criticized the film's visual aspect, "Even the look of the picture becomes tiresome after a while — it starts to seem depressive and shaggy and tired." She also stated that "The movie is so loaded with adult ideas about childhood — as opposed to things that might delight or engage an actual child." "The Globe and Mail"s Liam Lacey branded the production a "self-consciously sad film." Critic A.O. Scott named the film the best of 2009 and