(USA, 94 min.)
Dir. Wes Anderson, Writ. Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Edward Norton, Bruce
Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Bob Balaban.
It looks like Wes Anderson has found his niche. Moonrise Kingdom, which might one day be
seen as the exemplary Wes Anderson film, makes a strong follow-up production to 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Fox is an animated fairy-tale based on a
story by Roald Dahl, aka the master of children’s lit. Moonrise Kingdom, on the other hand, takes Anderson back to his
live-action roots, but Moonrise still
has the fanciful whimsy that makes Fox
such a charmer. An enchanting tale of child’s play, Moonrise Kingdom magically captures the joy and innocence of
childhood.
Set in the carefree days of 1965 (for no apparent reason,
unless the story coincides with America’s loss of innocence circa Vietnam), Sam
(Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) are two New Englanders caught in throes
of young love one fateful summer. After meeting the year before, Sam and Suzy
became lovers by proxy and created a long-distance relationship via paper and
pencil. They did it the old fashioned way, one could say. Time comes for them
to reunite when Sam sends Suzy a fateful epistle that asks her to run away with
him. Where they’re going and how they’ll survive remains to be seen, but all
they know is that love will lead them somewhere special.
Although Suzy is improperly packed for the great outdoors
(she brings a record player and a kitten), Sam is good at survival and can
wrangle up a rustic and romantic living situation. Sam is well prepared thanks
to his days as a Khaki Scout. In fact, Sam is in the midst of fine tuning his
scouting skills during the summer camp at Camp Ivanhoe. It is only when Scout
Master Ward (Edward Norton) realizes that Sam has flown the coop does anyone
realize that the kids are missing. Suzy’s parents, played by Frances McDormand
and Anderson staple Bill Murray, don’t detect a thing. Suzy’s parents receive
the news from the local policeman, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis, who performs
quite well playing against type), who takes an interest in Sam and a shine to Suzy’s
mother.
As Captain, Scout Master, and parents embark to find the
kids in the expansive wilderness, Moonrise
Kingdom creates an entrancing fable about the things that parents don’t
know about their children and the secrets that kids don’t know about their leaders.
Despite the great work by the A-level talent playing the elder members of Moonrise Kingdom (including Tilda
Swinton in a wonderfully dowdy appearance as a character who goes by the name
of Social Services and speaks of herself in the third person), the stars of the
film are the kids themselves. Gilman and Hayward are utterly delightful as the
young Sam and Suzy. Their natural, innocuous charm works perfectly with the playful
tone of Anderson’s Harold and Maude-type
story of lovers on the lam. They’re clearly having a ball (as are all the other
kids in the film) and their tangible, innocent energy beautifully evokes the sense of being a kid and of embracing the adventure posed by a life free of
consequence. (Or so it seems.)
The story of child’s play in Moonrise Kingdom provides the perfect fit for Anderson’s unique,
quirky style. Set to the bombastic kettle drums of the score by Alexandre
Desplat, Moonrise Kingdom is an
unabashed celebration of the age of innocence. There’s always been something
childlike about the colourful whimsy of his earlier works like Rushmore and The Royal Tenembaums, and both films feature characters that choose
arrested development in lieu of abandoning their youth. Moonrise Kingdom, however, works at a higher level because the look, tone, and pace of Anderson’s style are impeccably tailored for an adult’s nostalgia
for lost youth. Moonrise Kingdom lets
viewers experience the joy of being a kid all over again.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Moonrise Kingdom
is currently playing at the Varsity Cinema in Toronto.
It expands June 15.
