“I’m loath to say what the movie is supposed to be about or not supposed to be about because it’s more interesting for it to have its own life,” Jonze explained. “Everybody has a really personal relationship to the book, and it means one thing to one person, another thing to another person … I hope the movie can have that kind of life, too.”

That’s not to say that the film’s actors didn’t do some interpretation of their own. After all, part of acting is determining your character’s back-story, adding your own analysis to what you’ve been given in a script. Keener had the distinct challenge of playing Max’s mother, a character with no lines at all in the book. For the film, she was given more to do, but she remains on the periphery.

“She’s there with two kids and working and struggling with her job, and it’s not going very well,” Keener said, offering her take on the character. “And she’s probably way out of her water on it, and wants to have sex and be loved and all that stuff. And it’s hard with a couple of kids around who need you.”

Wait, sex? On the surface, Where the Wild Things Are is indeed a kids' movie, but its structure and style allows for a more adult reading. The film can be as tame or as mature as you’d like — another feature that should help it attract children and their parents, especially those who grew up with the source material.

And what of that source material? The book allows for multiple readings, but the film — considerably longer, of course — opens itself up in entirely different directions while remaining thematically true to the original. Jonze credited author Maurice Sendak’s laissez-faire attitude.

“[Sendak] wasn’t coming at this thing as a protective artist, and like, ‘This is my thing, and don’t fuck it up!’ It was sort of like he jumped off the cliff,” Jonze said. “Once he decided that he wanted us to do it, he gave it over to us entirely and said, ‘Make it your own. The movie’s not mine. The book was mine 40 years ago, but the movie is yours.’ And he really lived by that and that made the movie what it was.”

In listening to these people talk about Where the Wild Things Are, it’s evident that the project is as personal to them as it is to the audience. Jonze, Eggers, and Keener never inflict their perspectives on the film, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. As Keener put it, “It’s specific to you. It can be specific to your own experience, your own perspective. There’s room for how you feel about it.”

Where the Wild Things Are opens Fri/16 in Bay Area theaters.