Where the Wild Things Are Pols of "Time" magazine wrote that "[w]hat makes Sendak's book so compelling is its grounding effect: Max has a tantrum and in a flight of fancy visits his wild side, but he is pulled back by a belief in parental love to a supper 'still hot,' balancing the seesaw of fear and comfort." "New York Times" film critic Manohla Dargis noted that "there are different ways to read the wild things, through a Freudian or colonialist prism, and probably as many ways to ruin this delicate story of a solitary child liberated by his imagination." In Selma G. Lanes's book
Where the Wild Things Are: Motion Picture Soundtrack Jack Lawrence from The Raconteurs all also contributed. When director Spike Jonze approached Karen O to write the soundtrack to "Where the Wild Things Are", he cited The Langley Schools Music Project's "Innocence & Despair" as an example of the desired "simple melodies that were emotionally complex—something that both kids and adults would appreciate". "All Is Love" was released as the soundtrack's lead single on August 25, 2009, and is featured in the credits of the film. The soundtrack received generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream