It's less about a kid and more about being a kid.

"Where the Wild Things Are" focuses on emotions and the bewildering world of managing those feelings when you're a kid in a less-than-perfect family. It's not a children's movie - at least, not for the smallest fry - but rather a study of what it feels like to be a child.

How can you create a feature-length film from a book that contains only a handful of sentences? Well, Dave Eggers (the author of the book "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" and the screenplay for the delightful "Away We Go") teamed with Spike Jonze (the director of "Being John Malkovich") and managed to do it in an art-house film kind of way.

Young Max Records ("The Brothers Bloom") carries the weight of the movie as Max, a mischievous child who hollers while he's chasing the dog, pelts his sister and her friends with snowballs, and feels overcome with jealousy when his divorced mom (Catherine Keener, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin") has her boyfriend over for a visit.

Max decides to misbehave, despite his mother's pleadings. And when he does indeed grow out of control and wild, he runs off, off to a land where ... well, you know the rest.

The Wild Things from the book are all there. And, yes, they roar their terrible roars and roll their terrible eyes. They are led by Carol (James Gandolfini, HBO's "The Sopranos") as the volatile, emotional denizen of Max's new world. There's also the cynical, sarcastic beast Judith (Catherine O'Hara, "Away We Go"), and a bevy of other creatures voiced by Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Forest Whitaker and Paul Dano. Each represents an emotion or a side of Max.

At first, the Wild Things greet Max with skeptical curiosity and then with welcoming enthusiasm. The wild rumpus is just plain fun to watch. But the presence of Max exacerbates tensions that already simmer among the huge creatures. And the creatures are always suspicious: Does Max have favorites? Is Max a real king?

The story is beautifully acted. Records shows an astonishing range in a performance that's natural, whether he's jumping on a dining room table or conversing with a towering creature. The costumes and the creatures echo the beloved illustrations in the classic Maurice Sendak tale.

It might make you feel nostalgic. It might make you feel wistful. And it's sure to make you think about what it was like to be a child.