Misunderstood Max (Max Records, right) meets creatures like Carol (James Gandolfini) and becomes their leader in Where the Wild Things Are. (Matt Nettheim/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Viewers who’ve been tied up in knots over the long-awaited screen adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic 1963 kid’s book Where the Wild Things Are can finally exhale — the movie version doesn’t suck.

Far from it. There are moments that are so imaginative and visually arresting, it is surely the work of some kind of mad genius. I’m just not convinced the film works as a whole — something it pains me to write, because when it does work, it’s breathtaking and bold.

I hope parents will allow mature children to see the film. Director Spike Jonze never panders to kids, and he gets inside their frustrations in a way that feels fresh and very brave.

Before the movie has even begun, childlike scribbles appear overtop of the Warner Bros. logo, which make it clear that director Spike Jonze is determined to stay true to the book’s defiantly anarchic spirit. He succeeds in the opening scene, when we meet a boy named Max (Max Records), who’s in the midst of a full-blown tear. As he races around the house, gleefully hollering and chasing his dog, the handheld camera can barely keep up with him. This is boyhood aggression writ large and it’s exhilarating (and a little terrifying) to watch Max let loose.

Jonze puts us in the mind of a child in the movie’s early scenes — along with Max’s raucous, boundless energy, there’s also a lot of confusion, sadness and rage. His parents are divorced, and with dad out of the picture, the boy fights for the attention of his distracted teenage sister (Pepita Emmerichs) and weary, overworked mom (Catherine Keener). Max is often left to his own devices and his loneliness is palpable. This is dark material, but no darker than Sendak’s book, and I hope parents will allow mature children to see the film. Jonze never panders to kids, and he gets inside their frustrations in a way that feels fresh and very brave.

Though Max can’t give voice to what’s going on inside him, he lashes out on the evening that mom’s boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) comes by for dinner. Stomping around in a wolf suit and whiskers, the boy is determined to pull everyone’s chain, and it leads to a blowout that sees Max fleeing the house, and taking a stormy, perilous boat ride in the jet-black night.

He arrives at an island, where he stumbles upon a band of enormous, horned, furry creatures that are both scary and fascinating. When Max overhears Carol (James Gandolfni), one of the fuzziest of the fuzzy beasts, grumbling “Fine, I’ll just be on my own side,” it stirs something in the boy. He infiltrates this gang of Wild Things, convincing them he has the chops to act as their king.

Arguments with his mother (Catherine Keener, right) lead Max to escape to the World of Wild Things. (Matt Nettheim/Warner Bros. Pictures) Jonze’s decision to have actors in costumes playing the Wild Things — as opposed to the digital animation we’ve come to expect – works better than it sounds. The director’s output — from Being John Malkovich right back as his music video for Weezer, which seamlessly integrated the band into Arnold’s Happy Days restaurant — has always required some sort of suspension of disbelief. Where the Wild Things Are takes that one step further. One of this movie’s most impressive feats is how it convinces you that the creatures, with their bulbous-headed Muppet-style costumes and crinkly, CGI-enhanced faces, are every bit as flesh and blood as Max. I doubt I’ve seen another image this year as magical and oddly affecting as the one where Carol, with his Cheshire Cat grin and brown, tufty fur, gives Max a piggyback through the woods at dawn.

But Jonze paints himself into a corner with this setup. If the Wild Things are real, then they have to talk, and the dialogue that comes out of their mouths (scripted by Jonze and Dave Eggers) is unbelievably downbeat. It turns out these creatures are sorely in need of some Prozac. Everyone in this wild bunch, from the sourpuss Judith (a wonderfully dry Catherine O’Hara) to the neglected sad-sack Alex (Paul Dano) to the rebellious KW (a warm and lovely Lauren Ambrose), is consumed by petty squabbles and insecurities. Carol, with his heavy-lidded eyes and uncontrolled fits of rage, is clearly the worst off — it’s no accident he takes a shine to Max, praising the youngster for his deft ability to smash things to bits.

In Sendak’s version of the story, the Wild Things were born out of Max’s imagination, but here, they’re more like monsters from his id. In every scene — be it a dirt fight or a group attempt to build an elaborate village, complete with stick huts that look like gorgeous birds’ nests — viewers are encouraged to see the Wild Things through a psychotherapist’s eyes. Each creature replays a key scene from Max’s life back home and stands in for different parts of his traumatized self.

It’s a bit of a downer and you can feel the film deflating in its second half — at the precise moment when it should be pulsating with the kind of rough, pent-up energy that coursed through its opening scenes. These creatures don’t bay at the moon, they worry aloud about the death of the sun, and it bogs things down to such an extent that this otherwise brilliant movie never fully recovers.

In the end, instead of a rallying cry for a wild rumpus, the movie feels more like a call to “Let the healing begin.” As fans of Sendak’s original book know, part of the beauty of the Wild Things is that they existed in a world where emotions, even the darkest ones, never had to be discussed, where the Wild Things were always allowed to roam free and untamed.

Where the Wild Things Are opens Oct. 16.

Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.