****1/2 (out of 5)
Directed by: Wes Anderson
Written by: Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
I am in love with Wes Anderson. Well, his films, if we must be precise. Nowhere else in film can my eyes and ears delight in such perfectly composed visuals and eclectic yet appropriate music. There are those who believe his films are too precious, too pseudo-intellectual hipster, too flat in affect, or as oft-lobbed by reviewers, too twee. I think they are missing the point of Anderson’s appeal, that his films attempt to externalize the inner experience of the introvert, the thoughtful observer, the quirky outcast, without judgment or overwrought emotionality.
Simply, Moonrise Kingdom is the story of two kids who set out together to escape their troubles and embrace their young love. Sam (Jared Gilman), a Khaki Scout on the island of New Penzance, is an orphan, a boy alone. Despised by other troopers and prone to violence that belies his owlish appearance, he finds a soul mate in Suzy (Kara Hayward), who he meets at a rendition of Noah’s Ark by the local church. Suzy, considered troubled by her parents and costumed as a raven (natch), is intrigued by Sam, and the two begin a frank correspondence about the travails of their lives. They plan an extended excursion and select a date and rendezvous point. Being remarkably skilled children they accomplish their goal. Their absence mobilizes the adults to search for them and into their own lives.
Scout Master Ward (Ed Norton) has his competence questioned, Suzy’s parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), ponder where they have gone so wrong with Suzy, local patrolman Officer Stark (Bruce Willis) cares more for Sam than his koo-koo foster family, and Social Services (Tilda Swinton), embodies the fearsomely brisk bureaucratic response.
Exteriors are reflections of the interior in Anderson’s films, including physical spaces. The film opens with a tour of a home that seems more dollhouse than actual home. Objects are located exactly where they belong, objects that are so correct to the period, 1965, that I was startled by the strength of my nostalgia. The island on which the home ‘lives’ has its own introduction by an earnest scientist (the impeccable Bob Balaban), and there are frequent references and shots involving maps. The Khaki Scout camp, Camp Ivanhoe, is introduced by way of Scout Master Ward’s morning routine, and one feels they would be able to enter the camp and find anything needed based on this sequence alone. Why does Anderson do this, give such attention to settings? Among reasons likely inscrutable to me, I see a striving to emphasize character through the spaces the character lives and moves within, and attention paid to the seemingly smallest of things.
Anderson is sometimes criticized for the coldness of his characters, who react to each other with stares and speech lacking in emotion. The characters of Moonrise Kingdom aren’t the most emotionally demonstrative bunch, and why not? The viewer can discern some of the thoughts and feelings of the characters but the true complexity of these is layered, hinted at, as is true in life. Scout Master Ward’s dispairing into his tape recorder made me wonder about his past, his life away from Camp Ivanhoe. Daughter Suzy’s aggressive, “troubled” reaction to her family and life, what are the full origins? Her binoculars serving to enable her secret ‘superpower’ of long-range sight. Sam’s life in his foster home, how had things come to that state? It is a testament to the quality of the performances that the characters’ world extends beyond the screen.
The Anderson films I’ve seen have family and close friendships, and the complications of such, at their heart. In Rushmore, The Royal Tannenbaums, and here, children, including grown ones, struggle to comprehend choices made by their parents. In turn, parents cope with the repurcussions of those choices, with a desire to do better. Most parents will feel a pang of recognition when Suzy’s mother, Mrs. Bishop, counsels Mr. Bishop to hold himself together because they’re all the kids have and he replies, “It’s not enough.”
Sam and Suzy’s relationship is intense, tender, reciprocal. They trust each other with their secrets, her beloved books, the pin from his mother that he wears like a Khaki Scout badge that looks nearly identical to a pin I have from my grandmother. They protect each other from the perceived disaster of being caught by the grown-ups, or worse, by their peers.
On a side note, the way children relate to each other in Anderson’s films is a study into itself. They inhabit their own world with its own rules, which is how I remember childhood. There is violence, camaraderie, danger, sanctuary, heightened emotions and vivid personalities. Sibling relationships are often explored. Everything is being experienced for the first time. Everything is wonderful and terrifying.
Terrifying is the word to describe the love scene between Sam and Suzy, both twelve in the film. My daughter is eleven. This is a film about her peers I’m not sure she is ready to watch. Or I’m not ready for her to watch. French kissing. Hands resting on breasts. My daughter has seen film violence, why not this? It’s not gratuitous, but why was it necessary to show? To have the young leads engage like this? Having a child about the characters’ age make these difficult questions for me.
Overall this serves as an accessible gateway to Anderson’s oeuvre. The misanthropes are softened and the whimsy abundant. And I do want my daughter to see this, to see peers who aren’t running around in a vapid frenzy like the stars of too many Disney and Nick shows. Just not sure when.
Film Sloth 