Who are Wes Anderson’s films actually for? They can be read as wistful visits to the confusing domain of childhood or kids’ movies full of droll turns from Hollywood stars. Moonrise Kingdom, which tells of a pair of damaged runaways who find solace in the woods and each other, exists charmingly on that faultline. And in Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman, it features delightful turns by its two young leads.
Suzy, troubled oldest daughter of a loveless marriage, and Sam, an unpopular scout who is dumped by his latest foster parents, conspire a resourceful escape into the wilderness. They also take a speculative trip into the secretive, smoochy realm of early romance. Meanwhile a dysfunctional alliance of adults (Bruce Willis’s island policeman, Frances McDormand and Bill Murray as Suzy’s parents) and scouts (led by Ed Norton’s scoutmaster) are on the hunt. The film’s second half shifts genre into full-blown if tongue-in-cheek action when the misfits are captured and threatened by Social Services (in the person of Tilda Swinton’s blue-swathed dominatrix) and a Wagnerian storm.
Anderson gives rein to his borderline autistic taste for visual directness – bright colours, square-on framing and actors addressing the lens - but the look is as usual subverted by the director’s skew-whiff worldview, symbolised all too well by the island setting. Britten’s music for children – The Young Person’s Guide and Noyes Fludde – has a cameo role, underpinning the idea that children can’t start boning up on the complexities of the adult world soon enough. This oddball primer on young love, thankfully more heartfelt than icky, cries out to be watched by all the family. It'll sure get you all talking. Don’t miss the lone extra on offer is Murray’s deadpan tour of the set and introduction to the cast.
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