Moonrise Kingdom

"It's a fable about what it feels like to be 12 years old and afflicted, from head to toe, by a romantic crush the size of a planet."  --Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune


As I sat and watched this latest Wes Anderson entry, one word came to my mind again and again.  Innocence.  Innocence permeates the work of this filmmaker, and no more so than in this evocative story of young love.  There are times in this film when the depiction of young love borders even on the uncomfortable, but nevertheless, it remains innocent.  Beyond that overarching feeling, there is also the intricacy of Wes Anderson's work which always sets his films apart.  I have been a fan of all of his work, though his last couple of features have not been my favorites.  I connected again very well with this latest effort.

The film is about two young people, Suzy Bishop and Sam Shakusky.  They are both misfits in their own worlds.  Suzy is growing increasingly distant from her parents (a clueless couple played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), and Sam has decided to run away from his scout troop.  The two of them have made a pact to meet up together and run away.  Sam hopes to retrace on old Native American hiking route across the island where he lives, and Suzy joins him on the journey.

I can't think of a time when I have seen young love depicted quite like this.  Suzy runs to Sam because she sees disarray in her own home.  Her mother is having an affair with the Island Police chief (Bruce Willis), and so she not only feels distant from her mother, but has lost trust in her moral authority as well.  Her parents are both lawyers and are academic and distant.  Sam has no one to love him.  He is an orphan who has been rejected from his foster home, and the rest of his boy scout troop hate him, even though the scout master (Ed Norton) genuinely seems to care for him, as he reaches out to him.  The adversity that these two young people face in their lives draw them to each other.

Even though the story is somewhat straight forward, this is a Wes Anderson movie, and the journey is much more than just a simple story.  Each shot of the film could be a painting.  There is a symmetry to each shot that reminds me of Renaissance paintings.  There is a clarity of vision to each frame which communicates visually the emotion of each scene.  So much of the content of the film is simply communicated through the camera.  The first few moments of the film communicate so much content, even though only a few moments have gone by when we reach the end of them.  We are able to ascertain that Suzy has severe problems and that her parents are living in a marriage that is suffering deeply.  Anderson's ability to craft a unique style of storytelling which relies equally on photography and dialogue is part of what sets him apart.

The closing moments of this film are rich and poignant.  They tie the movie's characters and story elements together very well.  And as the final shot comes across the screen, we see something from Wes Anderson that we haven't seen before.  He dedicates this movie to "Juman".  Upon doing some research, I came to find out that "Juman" is Juman Malouf, a writer and the girlfriend of Wes Anderson.  In the end, this movie has something to say about young love.  That love could be between young people.  That love also could simply be a new love between two older people who have just found each other.  In any case, the movie has a fresh take on the nature of that kind of love.  The quote from Michael Phillips that I included works well in describing the movie's content.   His quote also, I think, can include the fact that crushes of this nature don't just happen to to young people.  Infatuation that is consuming happens to older folks as well, so this film's young love has a universal element to it. The complexity of love is seen not only through the situation of these young people, but also in the haunting off screen presence of Hank Williams.  His music hangs over this film, and it very effectively captures the peaks and the valleys of new love.  It was a joy to watch this movie.  I love seeing an artist not only communicate well, but seem to have so much fun communicating and being exhilarated by the process.