Spike Jonze’s I’M HERE looks amazing… but so did WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

The trailer for Spike Jonze’s next film has surfaced. It’s a 30 minute short film, sponsored by Absolut Vodka, titled I’m Here.

A library assistant plods through an ordinary life in LA until a chance meeting opens his eyes to a the power of creativity and ultimately, love. When this new life and love begin to fall apart, he discovers he has a lot to give. This short film proves that ordinary is no place to be.

For one reason or another, I’d heard very little about this film until now (obviously that’s due to Sundance currently screening it) and after reading the premise I was instantly drawn to the idea. There’s a huge amount of room for this film to say something about us as humans, how we form relationships and what exactly ‘love’ means to us. Like all good science fiction, I’m Here has the potential to turn the camera around and point it directly at us.

I’ve watched the trailer several times now, and it’s created an emotional response from me on each viewing. The character design, while deceptively simple, seems hugely expressive and thanks to Jonze’s amazing eye, fits into the world perfectly (he seems to have mastered the mix of live action and CGI elements). In my opinion, there’s no doubt that cinematography is Jonze’s strongest talent and he seems to be putting it to good use here; every frame of this trailer looks beautiful.

The music sets a sombre, bitter sweet tone which no doubt helps with the atmosphere, too.

However, I had a very similar response to the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are. It also presented us with a bunch of beautiful images, emotionally moving music and very little dialogue.

I was severely disappointed by Where The Wild Things Are when it was finally released. Whilst it looked beautiful there was very little substance, the plot was almost non-existent and the characters seemed far too emotionally distant for me to ever care what happened to them. In my opinion, Spike Jonze went for style over substance with ‘Wild Things‘ and the film suffered because of it. The dialog in particular was very light and fluffy, reminding me of the sort of graffiti you’d read on a toilet wall in some hip alternative club in the city. A little of that is okay, but if you’re going to make a character speak so profoundly you need to develop them as characters, otherwise they’re simply void pawns who speak for the writer/director.

I’m Here has a lot more promise however, as I think that the 30 minute length could be extremely beneficial to the more stylized films Jonze likes to make (something narrative heavy like Being John Malkovich aside). It gives him enough time to establish the world, it’s characters and their motives, whilst also pushing the narrative forward at a constant pace.

I obviously haven’t seen I’m Here yet, so this is all just speculation, but the positive buzz from Sundance has me very excited for it. It also raises the question, perhaps Where The Wild Things Are could have benefited from a 30 minute length?