Wes Anderson is an acquired taste. You either love the visual style employed and themes explored in his work, or you find them to be repetitive and overly whimsical. Moonrise Kingdom isn't going to change your mind - it is Anderson at perhaps his most whimsical, creating a world that is full of visual wonder that acts as a storybook stage on which to explore the theme of young, forbidden love.
In this particular iteration of Anderson's ongoing tale about the clash between the dreams of the young, aging and the effect that process has on the destruction of those dreams, the setting is a barrier island in the year 1965. We are introduced to the family of Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward), a misunderstood girl who is the fourth child of parents (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) in a loveless marriage crumbling due to mutual disinterest and a poorly concealed affair. The opening shot, a sequence of moving tableaus featuring the entire family cloistered in their own concerns, evokes the cutaway shots of Anderson's "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" and is perhaps the most visually breathtaking sequence in a film that is constructed and held together by such scenes.
The film skips to the backstory of Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman), an orphan who has been juggled through the social services process and ostracized by his Khaki Scout peers. He flees the camp of Scoutmaster Randy Ward (played brilliantly by Edward Norton, blending perfectly utter ineptitude and deep-seated compassion for his charges) to find Suzy, who we learn through a flashback met Sam a year prior and remained pen pals with him throughout the ensuing year.
Sam and Suzy hatch an escape plot that brings them into conflict with Sam's scout peers, the Bishop parents and local law enforcement (embodied by Captain Sharp, played by Bruce Willis in a capable turn as a cop with a heart). The entire tale is narrated by an eccentric-looking local, merely credited as The Narrator in the opening titles, played by Christopher Guest-veteran Bob Balaban.
Much has been made of Anderson's visuals in this film, and indeed every scene is drenched in nostalgia-coated beauty. But to simply describe its aesthetic quality would be to ignore the practical brilliance of the world he has constructed. Like "The Tempest"'s tropical isle, this is a world that is untenable as it stands. Suzy's parents are trapped with a daughter they do not understand and cannot control, just as Norton's scoutmaster has a charge on his hands he doesn't completely understand. The realization of this by Suzy's mother and the master lead to two equally powerful scenes - one with Suzy in the bathtub and the other between Norton and Gilman. This is Anderson at his best - depicting the misunderstanding between the young and the old; those that understand the world the way it is, and those who see so much more in what could be.
As Balaban's narrator tells us early on, a storm is to arrive and wash this conflict, and the world it inhabits, away. This provides the film's climax and more terribly breathtaking visuals, with the rushing water and breaching dams drawing not so subtle hints of Anderson's most recent film, the stop-motion "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Anderson's creation apparently extends beyond the visual elements of the film, as well. I was surprised to learn, while looking up background information for this review, that the books Suzy reads from in the move are, in fact, fictitious creations themselves, and that Anderson has recently released an animated companion to their narratives.
It is difficult for Anderson-philes not to leave the theater pondering where this film rates in his oeuvre. It is certainly deeper, and explores more territory, than Life Aquatic, though Murray proves just as capable of donning the Anderson persona of befuddled development once again. And, in its exploration of love, it is more heartfelt and honest than Rushmore. Suzy and Sam's romance blossoms realistically and dripping with adolescent awkwardness that brings out the muted charms of Hayward and Gilman, whose chemistry onscreen is so quintessentially Anderson it's difficult to imagine them working for any other director.
Moonrise Kingdom does not, however, approach the majesty of The Royal Tenenbaums, whose scope simply encompasses so many themes and relationship dynamics that it will likely stand as Anderson's magnum opus for his career. But that does not mean Moonrise Kingdom should be overlooked. This is one of this generation's finest directors, still at the top of his game, and continually challenging the audience to explore the process of growing up and what that means to ourselves and the world we construct around ourselves.
Rating: 5/5 stars
