With the help of bestselling author and hipster favorite Dave Eggers, director Spike Jonze has turned a nearly wordless picture book into a full-length feature. Where the Wild Things Are brims with creativity, imagination, and the untamed spirit of childhood—all hallmarks of Maurice Sendak’s enduring creation. With its PG-rating and source material, Jonze’s film might seem like standard children’s fare, but there’s a palpable sense of loneliness, sadness, and unpredictability rarely felt in mainstream family films.

Like Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, Where the Wild Things Are boasts an undercurrent of darkness that might surprise children and any unwitting parents unfamiliar with Jonze’s past work in Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. However, despite its sometimes melancholy mood, this adaptation is often buoyant with moments of joy and gleeful abandon.

Max (Max Records) is a terror of a child who makes me glad getting your tubes tied is no longer such an invasive procedure He chases his dog with a fork, destroys his older sister's room, and bites his single mother (Catherine Keener) on the shoulder. But despite Max's mischief, he is a sensitive, lonely child who craves attention from his family. After a particularly painful fight with his mother (the aforementioned biting incident), he runs away, tearing through his neighborhood until he finds a boat that will take him across the water.

Max braves storms and rough sea to reach a far-off island, where he discovers the Wild Things. Though they initially threaten to eat him, Max is soon declared king of the clan. There's Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini, The Sopranos), a moody creature with a destructive streak. His best friend is the birdlike Douglas (Chris Cooper), but he misses the oft-absent KW (Lauren Ambrose). The mopey Judith (Catherine O'Hara) and rumbling, easygoing Ira (Forest Whitaker) are in love, and everyone seems to overlook Alexander (Paul Dano).

Max finds companionship and fun with his new family, but he learns that they may be no match for the comforts of his real home. There's little in the way of plot development (which sometimes works to the film's detriment), but that expands the playful mood and childlike perspective of not being in a hurry to go anywhere. The time Max spends in the land of the Wild Things is more about experience and interaction than it is moving things forward. However, as delightful as these meanderings are, the film starts to drag in its second half, and it never regains the momentum or near-perfection of the first portion.

Amidst the Oscar-winning and other veteran talent, the film’s best acting belongs to young Records. As Max, Records feels surprisingly fresh and authentic for a child actor. He’s unselfconscious, even when relating to the CGI-enabled faces of the Wild Things.

Each of the Wild Things’s voices is perfectly cast, particularly Christopher Guest favorite O’Hara as the glum Judith, Cooper as the insightful Douglas, and Gandolfini as the volatile Carol.

The combination of costume and CGI brings the Wild Things off the pages and onto the screen with skill, and the actors’ performances add to this sense of reality. The world of the Wild Things is created with an equal attention to detail, and its organically based structures at once root the action in the real world and place it in the realm of fantasy.

Jonze has again paired with director of photography Lance Acord (Adaptation), who has also worked with Sofia Coppola in the past. His eye lends a look that manages to be at once dreamy and rooted in reality, and hand-held cameras are a favorite, a rarity in children's films. This isn't the typical family-friendly movie that gives easy answers and goes in a straight line between points A and B. It's surprisingly complex and achingly simple at the same time, and it won't appeal to everyone, regardless of his or her age. But for those who can appreciate it, Where the Wild Things Are is at once nostalgic and of the moment, boasting an indie rock soundtrack from Yeah Yeah Yeah' frontwoman Karen O.