Let me
preface this review by saying that I am a huge fan of Wes Anderson’s films and
all the little quirks that come with them.
I love being able to recognize a director’s work knowing that no-one
else in the world could have made them but them, and Anderson’s work is very
easy to identify. Then why was it that
these quirks and visual motifs that are prominent in all of his films, seemed
to irk me in “Moonrise Kingdom”. Right
from the opening shot of the film, where we are witness to rooms of young
Suzy’s house, it just rubbed me the wrong way and I do not know why. This is the stuff I usually love, but it just
felt so self conscious here and so in your face that I reacted against it
strongly. I am also sick of Wes
Anderson’s obsession with the colour yellow, enough already.
The film
is about two twelve year old kids who, after inadvertently running into each
other at a school play one day, fall in love and decide to run away
together. The young boy, Sam, escapes
from his scout camp while Suzy leaves her well to do home (unnoticed until
dinner time arrives) to meet at a predetermined destination decided between
letters exchanged by the kids. When it
is finally discovered that they are missing, it sets about the parents of the
children, the scout troop and a local cop to fan out to try and find the young
children. To make matters worse, a large
storm is approaching the town.
I am at
a loss as to why “Moonrise Kingdom” irritated me so much, I am hoping I just
wasn’t in the mood for an Anderson film and that a second screening will find
me loving it, especially due to the fact that a lot of critics have claimed it
to be Wes Anderson’s best work yet.
Despite it annoying me, I did not hate the film, and that was mainly due
to the fact that I loved the love story between the children that is the heart
of the film. It was beautiful seeing
love portrayed so innocently, and the two actors that played Sam and Suzy
(Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward respectfully) were magnificent, especially young
Hayward, I thought that she was a revelation and seemed to act beyond her
years. The other standout was Bruce
Willis who plays Captain Sharp, the sad police-officer of the town. This was a splendid example of against type
casting that worked beautifully. I
honestly would have never thought that Bruce Willis could fit so comfortably
into one of Wes Anderson’s films, but he does just that and is a stand
out. The other actors are all fine, but
something just felt amiss with the Edward Norton casting in the role of Scout
Master Ward, he just feels quirky for quirky sake, which irritated me.
“Moonrise
Kingdom” sees Wes Anderson tackle the familiar theme of dysfunctional families
again, with Sam being an orphan, while Suzy lives in a two parent family even
though no one communicates with one another except via the use of a
loudspeaker. She is thought of as a
problem child, especially compared to her well behaved brothers and because of
this she feels like an outcast. She also
struggles with the fact that she knows about her mother’s affair with the local
policeman.
Visually,
the film looks just like a Wes Anderson picture as he has once again
collaborated with Robert Yeoman as cinematographer, and as I mentioned before,
the colour design of the film is heavily influenced by pastel colours and
especially the colour yellow. It had a
kind-of been there done that feel to it, but I will admit I did like the look
of Suzy’s pink dress she wears throughout the film.
Overall,
I was very disappointed by “Moonrise Kingdom”, worse in fact, the film
irritated me. The love story at the
centre of the film is actually beautiful and really well handled, but it was
the Wes Anderson quirks that I normally love that drove me to distraction here. The worst of which was Bob Balaban’s
narration of the town and island, that was far too self consciously clever for
its own good. While the film looked good
as usual, it unfortunately was nothing new, I had seen this all before from
Anderson. Personally I would have loved
for him to focus more on the love story and leave behind all of his eccentric
characters and quirks that he is now famous for. As I said above, I hope it was just my mood
of the day when I was viewing “Moonrise Kingdom” and that a second viewing may
help in re-evaluating the film as brilliant, but as for now I can only just
give the film a pass mark.
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