What surprised me about the Gores' breakup is not just that they really did seem to have an affectionate and functional marriage; it's that I always thought of Tipper Gore as a woman who managed to inhabit the unenviable role of political spouse about as well as it's possible to inhabit it. She seemed both independent of her husband and warmly supportive. Granted, these impressions were formed based mostly on an interview I had with her in 2002 when I was writing a profile of Al Gore, who was just starting to open up about what it was like to win the popular vote but not the presidency. Tipper talked about their ordeal for something like two hours in her childhood home in Arlington, Va., and was gracious and hospitable. I have this memory of her opening the refrigerator and urging me to have some yogurt. I think my favorite bit was when she talked about her reaction to the protesters who surrounded the vice-presidential mansion after the 2000 election, demanding that the Gores vacate "Cheney's house," as they described it, while the family was waiting for the Supreme Court opinion. Tipper responded by pushing boom-boxes against the windows and blasting whale noises and other calming sounds at them. I always thought that showed a sturdy and useful sense of humor. I also got the sense that she had spent a lot of time doing what she could to ease her husband's distress—placing relaxation candles here and there, renovating the deck to include a fountain. Small things, surely, but imagine trying to comfort or even just deal with a spouse who simultaneously won and lost the U.S. presidency. Where would you even start?

Before the interview formally began, we were chatting about 9/11, which was still very much recent history—the house we were sitting in is not far from the Pentagon—and I happened to mention that my husband worked in counterterrorism and how consuming that was just then. "You have to understand, it's not going to change," Tipper said, or words to that effect. "You have to create your own support system." She spoke with the forceful conviction of one who knew. The successful political spouses, I thought after that conversation, must be the ones who are extroverted and resourceful enough to reach out and build their own network of people who will help and listen and pay attention to them and combat neglect. Michelle Obama, for example, always seemed to me to be in the mold of Tipper; the current first lady has talked frequently about realizing that she needed to cultivate friends and helpers and fellow parents, once she came to terms with the fact that she would never have her husband to herself in the way many other wives can.

Well, maybe it was something other than the strains of a political marriage that got to them—who knows? Al Gore hasn't really been a politician for more than a decade. He's something else now—a global celebrity. Maybe it was the post-political period that was hardest. But thinking about all that Tipper Gore has gone through with her husband—the Clinton years, the race, the loss, the aftermath, etc.—I do hope she has a happy future ahead of her. I think another reason I've always had a soft spot for her is because, at the time I interviewed her, my own kids were young and I was so frazzled by the work-kids chaos that I dashed out to buy a sweater set for the interview to go with what was probably my only non-baby-food-covered pair of pants. I was in such a rush that I left the price tag on. If she noticed during the course of that two hours, she politely said nothing—schooled in the ceaseless acts of diplomacy, large and small, that public life requires.

Photograph of Al and Tipper Gore by Sandra Mu/Getty Images.

Tags: Tipper Gore; Al Gore; separation; 2000 election; Supreme Court

Thanks for the warning, Hanna, that the movie Where The Wild Things Are isn't for the kids the book was written for. All the more reason for me to hold to my determination to boycott. I don't care how whimsical and stirring critics keep saying it is. I hate the whole idea of this film, as I ranted about months ago when the trailer came out. Maurice Sendak's Max is a deliberately two-dimensional character in a short picture book. That's who Max should remain. I do not want a fleshed-out version with a divorced mom or a gloomy sister. Not even if—especially if—Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers are pullling the new strings. And I certainly don't want the monsters Max meets on his imagined voyage to have back stories. The Sendak story is indelible as myth and archetype. Max represents the child who gets punished and scared and then comforts himself, as you say. The monsters are wild sketches of imagination. That is all he and they should be. When movies fill in the outlines of stories like these with details, they push out our own individually imagined renderings. I object!

Dana says in her review that the movie could have been a great 20-minute short. Maybe. Or maybe the two-minute trailer—which is pretty great, even I have to admit—was all we ever needed of a real Max on screen. It intrigues without overanswering. Unlike the movie.

Tags: dave eggers, maurice sendak, spike jonze, where the wild things are

Manohla Dargis said the movie “startles and charms and delights.” The book is fantastic. It was cold and rainy all weekend. So I took my children, of course, and was startled to discover a heavy divorce drama that alternately terrified and bored. There are many sublime and original moments in the movie. But overall, the experience is like being trapped in an est session from the 1970’s, with lots of people yelling and haranguing one pitiful little boy, and family breakdown (and Jim Nelson) looming in the background. Needless to say, it was barely appropriate for kids.

The movie starts out promisingly. Max is alone and his sister won’t play with him, so he plays with the fence and a new snow fort he’s just built. He starts a snowball fight, gets hurt, and cries. It matters and it doesn’t matter. This is perfect. It’s not in the book, of course, but it preserves the spirit, by animating the extreme emotions of an ordinary day through a spirited child’s imagination.

But then Max sees his mother kiss her new boyfriend, and it’s all downhill from there. The movie becomes about a singular boy whose parents are getting divorced, whose mother is stressed out, and whose dad has disappeared. Instead of being 6 or 7, as he is in the book, Max is more like 10, which means he picks up on dark feelings but can’t really translate them.

The wild things are parallels to his broken family; it begins with them smashing their houses—get it? The Tony Soprano wild thing is his dad, and the women are parts of his mom, in a good and bad mood. The inscrutable owls—around which there is much confusion—are the mom’s new boyfriends. From there, the plot of Kramer vs. Kramer unfolds. His mom is unreliable, while his dad is angry and depends on him. Max feels both omnipotent and invisible.

It’s too specific to be allegory, so instead it's just plain boring, or terrifying. Unlike in the book, the adventure takes place outside, not in his room, which raises the possibility of true abandonment and danger. At one point the Tony Soprano wild thing (Carol) gets out of control, and almost bashes the boy’s head in. In the end Max leaves, neither triumphant nor enlightened. He learns, and admits that he has no power, but this realization only leaves him depleted and helpless.

The original Where the Wild Things Are picks up on a common theme in children’s books. Through their imagination, kids regain control of scary or confusing situations. They get to tell lies, master the monsters, and then go home to a hot supper. Not celluloid Max. In the final scene of the movie, his mom hugs him and gives him supper. But then she FALLS ASLEEP. She is still the overworked, harried divorcee she always was.

Of course my kids were not offended or annoyed. They mostly had no idea what was going on, because this was a tale told from a 60-year-old psychoanalyst’s point of view. “I’m bored.” “I’m scared.” That’s what my 6-year-old son kept repeating. The hipster in suede Pumas sitting next to us—the movie was intended more for him, after all—glared.

Tags: where the wild things are