Running Time: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Wes Anderson
Quick Impressions:
I’ve seen all of Wes Anderson’s movies, but I’ve never reviewed one before, and I’m finding it kind of tricky. Moonrise Kingdom had an unusually good trailer, one that was practically like a mini-movie itself, so I was pretty excited. If you liked the preview, you will probably like the movie. The film delivers exactly what the preview promises (particularly if you’re familiar with Anderson’s work).
Casual fans of Anderson’s films should find plenty to enjoy in Moonrise Kingdom. And those new to Anderson are likely to enjoy the movie, too, provided they realize that it’s an art film, not a popcorn flick. (Of course, how you could watch the preview and not understand the type of film to expect is beyond me.)
But die-hard Anderson devotees are a different story. My guess is that hard core fans will have an extreme reaction to this film. Some will think Moonrise Kingdom is his crowning achievement, while others will sigh in disappointment that it falls short of his earlier greatness. And the very quality that will elevates it for some, will cheapen it for others.
So if you’re unfamiliar with Wes Anderson, but the preview Moonrise Kingdom looked cool to you, you’ll probably like it. And if (like me) you’re a casual fan of Anderson, you’ll probably like Moonrise Kingdom, too. But if you feel like you exist because melted celluloid from Anderson’s films courses through your veins, then I don’t know what to tell you. My review probably isn’t going to tell you anything at all. You’ll just have to see the movie for yourself (which, obviously, you’re going to do, anyway, and possibly, you’ve already done).
The Good or The Bad:
Moonrise Kingdom has an elegant simplicity that works for me. Nothing impresses me like concision, conservation of characters acting within a nice, tight plot. Every day, I read countless picture books to my three-year-old daughter and wish with all my heart that I had the ability to write a good picture book. Some of those children’s short stories are absolute masterpieces. But picture books are a tricky genre because few end up mediocre. Most children’s stories are either a) masterpieces of profound simplicity or b) worse than the glossy copy on the back of a cereal box.
Most of Anderson’s movies have a storybook feel (particularly The Royal Tenenbaums and all the films that follow it). But most of those films have a sprawling, uncontainable quality that Moonrise Kingdom lacks. The story in Moonrise Kingdom is far more focused, focused particularly on the central relationship between twelve-year-old runaways Suzy and Sam. The supporting characters get less screen time and less development. This doesn’t mean that the adult characters in the film are all shallow or even all static. But their character arcs all happen on the same coordinate plane. There are no wild tangents or story threads that spiral off into other imaginary axes. What I’m trying to convey (other than the fact that I obviously daydreamed a lot during my high school geometry class) is that Moonrise Kingdom feels more like an actual storybook than any film Anderson has made before, and I think that’s a point in its favor.
Personally, I prefer simplicity (because—as someone with a cluttered mind—I find it so hard to achieve). I can’t help imagining, however, that some people will see this as a sign of conformity and, possibly, laziness. Anderson has made a movie that’s easier for the mainstream to digest. Because by choice it lacks a layer of complexity, the characters are less interesting, less human, and the story feels more contrived and less eccentric. You’re not going to get the rich, layered characters here that you find in The Royal Tenenbaums or The Darjeeling Limited (or, at least, you’re not going to see them stripped down, explored, and examining themselves from all angles here). You’re also not going to get quite the unpredictable absurdity of something like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Casablanca is a masterpiece, a very neat, and for all intents and purposes, perfect movie. But it certainly doesn’t give you the same impression of World War II as, say, The Thin Red Line or the highly eccentric movie adaptation of Catch-22. A flawlessly assembled puzzle has a different kind of appeal than hundreds of colorful jigsaw pieces strewn across the floor. There’s a trade-off that comes with a perfect little movie, and I know there are going to be people who mourn the loss of the imperfection. Perhaps you’re one of them. Perhaps when you see Moonrise Kingdom you’ll think it’s too “perfect,” too “cute,” like Wes Anderson self-consciously making a Wes Anderson film, like a caricature of his earlier work.
Now me, I think it’s easy to create something that’s a complex, psychologically rich, sprawling mess. That comes naturally. Making something small and beautiful and self-contained and simple—that takes craft and discipline. I’m in awe of Moonrise Kingdom. My husband decided right away that it’s his favorite of the Anderson films he’s seen, and I tentatively agree. I definitely think this is definitely going to replace The Royal Tenenbaums as Anderson’s most watched and appreciated film by the general movie-going public.
It reminds me of a story book with a series of water-colored postcards for illustrations. As usual, Anderson finds a striking aesthetic and sticks with it. Moonrise Kingdom looks beautiful from the first to the final frame.
The soundtrack is also perfect. (Here I must admit that I listen to songs based on whether or not I like the way they sound, so I won’t pretend to have any knowledge of music or to be cool or hip in any way. If I like a song, I will play it again and again whether it’s sung by Kanye West or Big Bird or Loretta Lynn or Tchaikovsky or Katy Perry or some delightful indie group everyone raves about in places I occasionally remember to go. In fact, it wouldn’t be unheard of to find all those songs back to back on my playlist. So keep that in mind. I claim no musical expertise or taste). I just think the songs work perfectly with the art direction and establish exactly the right mood in each successive scene.
Also for a movie that’s pretty, this one also has an incredible amount of heart. It’s pretty hard not to be won over by the innocent and earnest passion of the young protagonists. At moments, in fact, the movie seems like a latter day Romeo and Juliet not in terms of how events play out, but because of how much the actions of the young lovers influence the adults (and even the other kids) in their lives.
I like the way the character development plays out in this movie because the other characters surrounding Sam and Suzy are just as affected by the central story as the audience. So their soul-searching and revelations don’t take us away from the main plot. Instead, they force us to remain focused on it all the more intently. You get the idea that we are seeing the world as Suzy and Sam see it. The adults are only in the story at all because they were part of the world Sam and Suzy shared. Still, these adults manage to make their own self-discoveries quietly, unobtrusively, and without distracting us (or even taking any time away) from the main plot.
The movie is consistently funny, full of sight gags and wry, off-kilter humor. Much of the humor arises from how seriously the characters take themselves. They have no idea that so much of what’s happening around them is absurd. They don’t know that they’re characters in a storybook. But even though we laugh at them, they remain sympathetic, particularly Sam and Suzy. Their awkward attempts at romance, their confused passion, their adolescent intensity and angst—these things are funny because we’ve all felt them, too. When we laugh at Sam and Suzy, we’re laughing at ourselves. But the reason this pair is so captivating is that they represent something sacred and essential and ephemeral and fleeting. And that isn’t funny at all.
Best Action Sequence:
I would hardly call this an action movie, but there’s quite a bit of fighting, chasing, running, fleeing, pursuing, and general roughhousing in Moonrise Kingdom. The scene with the scissors is probably my favorite, although most of the action occurs off screen (my favorite kind). Another great moment comes near the end when all the scouts are chasing Sam. (I just love the way they all run.) And actually, the rescue of Commander Pierce is pretty awesome, too. And I loved the moment in the church right around the time the lights went out. The visual drama of the dramatic escape gave me a little thrill.
Favorite Line:
There are all kinds of great lines in this movie. My favorite comes when Suzy explains to Sam just what happened to her wounded wrist. Her description is so disorienting. What happened to her has surely happened to others but most wouldn’t explain quite the way she does. Sam’s, “I love you, but you don’t know what you’re talking about” is pretty great, too, as are his thoughts on the dog (though that last moment feels a little contrived and self-conscious to me).
Funniest Scene:
I love the montage of strange events relayed in the snatches we hear of Suzy and Sam’s long correspondence. So much of that material is of the “funny because it’s true” ilk, though what we hear is often so much less dramatic than what we see. I also love the moment when Edward Norton’s character discovers how Sam escaped. It’s so silly, but it’s impossible not to laugh. I also love that she’s lugging around a suitcase full of library books. As someone who has often lugged around a suitcase full of library books, this detail really spoke to me, and the whole time I watched them traipsing through the woods, I thought, That has got to be so heavy!
Best Scene:
By far the strongest sequence in the film is the brief time Sam and Suzy share on the beach. That part is pretty amazing. One stunning thing is how daringly the movie depicts the awkward sexual exploration of the two tweens. Probably because of the obsession with and horror of pedophilia in this country (which I’m not saying is a bad thing, mind you), we rarely see tween sexuality explored so boldly on screen in American films. I’m pretty sure some people will be uncomfortable with some of this. Just when I was beginning to get concerned, the moment ended. It’s really wonderful. And what follows is great, too. I love the ear piercing. Sam and Suzy’s love is the heart of the movie, and this scene is the heart of that. What’s so fantastic about it is the way it resonates. The two kids feel things that everybody feels. They have the kind of crises that are particular to and pervasive throughout humanity, and their solution to all this confusion, disappointment, and fear is to form a meaningful bond with another human being in the only way they know how (following methods they’ve learned by observing, like they’re hoping to find magic through ritual).
Best Scene Visually:
I love the part when Bob Balaban’s Narrator (who is great throughout) begins talking in the dark and during the scene comes closer and turns on the light. That’s far from the best scene visually, but the whole thing is spectacular visually and so cohesive that it’s hard to pick out just one scene that shines above the others.
The Performances:
Tilda Swinton is always so dramatic to behold. All she has to do is show up, and you’ve got a spectacle. She doesn’t have a very large role in the movie, but I really love that she consistently refers to herself as Social Services as if she’s some sort of walking metonym, striding around in a swirling blue cape. (I think that particular sort of metonym would be a synecdoche, but since the whole statement is very like a metaphor, I think there’s no point in dwelling on the details.) Her character serves as a visually dramatic reminder that you’re watching a storybook from 1964.
Jason Schwartzman is here because isn’t he always? This time he plays Cousin Ben, an overgrown scout whose involvement in the whole affair is as amusing as it is odd. What exactly are this man’s motivations? He’s a very weird character who seems like an overgrown kid himself.
Edward Norton plays Scout Master Ward, another character who really seems like someone from a storybook. Then again, I think you have to have that kind of earnestness and focus if you’re trying to keep a bunch of boys in line in a summer camp. The way he deflects all of the probing, off-topic questions one young scout poses about his education and life reminds us that quite often real people deliberately behave like storybook characters, particularly when they have difficult children in their charge. Harvey Keitel is just fine as Commander Pierce, but he’s really only there as a convenience who makes Norton’s character more interesting.
Bruce Willis as Captain Sharp is probably the character who early on seems the most like a real person. His character is definitely dynamic and certainly shaped by the events unfolding around him. But, ironically, he’s also the most like a storybook character by virtue of the way he factors into the storybook ending. Early on, I thought Willis seemed a little out of place in the world of the movie, but as I watched more I realized I was wrong.
I really love Frances McDormand. I think she has a showier part in Madagascar 3 than in Moonrise Kingdom, but she’s good here, too, as Suzy’s mother, Laura Bishop. At first I thought that her megaphone was too convenient as a prop, that it gave her character something far too easy to do, but I was wrong about that, too. I’m wrong a lot. Bill Murray was good as Walt Bishop, Suzy’s father, but I didn’t find his character as interesting as some others, though I thought his conversation with his wife in bed near the end of the movie was quite good.
Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman are perfect as Suzy and Sam. Hayward, I think, is slightly stronger since it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the part. She’s a pretty girl and displayed just the right mix of innocence and insolence. She played the role of someone covering vulnerability with false moxie just about right. I also loved all the other scouts, particularly Sam’s nemesis who ends up in the infirmary. This film was very well cast, and all the kids were magnificent.
Overall:
Moonrise Kingdom is a wonderfully entertaining film that could easily be considered a masterpiece. It’s one of the strongest movies I’ve seen so far this year, and one of Wes Anderson’s best. I enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish. It’s simply beautiful and a pleasure to watch on many levels.