By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Bill Murray | Bruce Willis | Ed Norton | Frances McDormand | Jared Gilman | Jason Schwartzman | Kara Heywood | Tilda Swinton
Country: united_states
Year: 2012
Running time: 94
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748122/
Chris says: “Back when I first saw THE DARJEELING LIMITED, I detected the promise of a mature, career-defining work lurking deep within, and suggested that Wes Anderson shed some of his baggage in order to locate it. I didn’t specify what, exactly, that would entail, only that DARJEELING lacked emphatic resolve to a degree which, for all of the film’s attributes, only highlighted the director’s growing self-absorption.
“Five years later, MOONRISE KINGDOM very nearly fills that magnum opus slot in Anderson’s oeuvre. While sonorously emphatic compared to anything he’s done since THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, it’s not as if he has radically altered his approach and discarded all of those stylistic quirks that viewers tend to either deeply admire or despise. I doubt he could rid his films of them if he wanted to—arguably no other filmmaker of his generation has forged such an instantly recognizable sensibility, both in visual and aural cues (you can trace the opening scene’s room-by-room house tour back to TENENBAUMS and THE LIFE AQUATIC) and narrative themes (absent parents, disillusioned adults, creative and resourceful children, parent-child bonding between two characters that are not related, etc;). Fortunately, they’re refinements rather than retreads, in the tradition of other auteurs who similarly make variations of the same film, from Bergman and Ozu to Woody Allen and the Dardennes.
“At first glance, MOONRISE gets a lot out of its time and place. Although ostensibly set in the present, Anderson’s past films felt lost in time, suffused with anachronisms that suggested not a specific date but an imaginative space where memories converged and coalesced. Here, he’s finally taken the extra step to purposely set the action in a particular time (late summer of 1965) in addition to a specific place (New Penzance, a fictional island off the New England coast). Committing to an era allows him to recreate it without seeming obsolescent. Unsurprisingly, everything from the wardrobe to the soundtrack impeccably evokes a year one could easily surmise even without expository assistance from Bob Balaban as the film’s narrator (but only Anderson would supplement Francoise Hardy and Hank Williams songs with relatively obscure Benjamin Britten pieces).
“What primarily lends MOONRISE its mystique, however, is New Penzance itself. The coastal landscape (actually Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island) appears at once both cozily idyllic and rough-hewn. Its isolation breeds an otherness that manifests itself to positive (gorgeous, untouched scenery which Alexander Desplat’s score marvelously complements) and negative (a hurricane renders the same landscape violent and unforgiving) effect. It’s a model setting for a coming-of-age story where two young adolescents, Sam and Suzy (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, both first-time film actors) run away together, much to the chagrin and worriment of their peers, parents and other adults, most of whom are fairly unhappy and likely desire to run away from their own duties and disappointments as well. Anderson has assembled a terrific cast which includes faces both familiar (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman) and new to the director; the latter include Edward Norton as an earnest scoutmaster, Bruce Willis as a lonely, pragmatic cop and Tilda Swinton as a fearfully efficient woman who, in a typical Andersonian quirk, goes by the name (and occupation) ‘Social Services.’
“Naturally, a film’s setting and design will only carry it so far without an engaging narrative; in this case, the film’s story is its not-so-secret weapon which Anderson places front and center. Although he’s addressed the notion of first love before (most extensively in RUSHMORE), he’s never explored it as robustly and beautifully as he does with Sam and Suzy. The extended section where they run off together hits a crescendo of feeling and warmth that surpasses anything Anderson has previously tried in this vein. It’s almost like a whimsical take on BEFORE SUNRISE, only the characters aren’t aware that their time together is predetermined; thus their abrupt separation and eventual reunion makes more of an impact. The film’s second half aspires to an action-packed, Marx Brothers-style lunacy similar to what Anderson attempted in FANTASTIC MR. FOX, complete with fire, flash floods and even someone getting struck by lightning. Still, it’s the delicately lovely and wistful note the film concludes on that left me in a giddy haze as I exited the theater. 5 cats”
Bruce says: “Why, oh, why can’t I become enamored with Wes Anderson’s films? I don’t think he is a bad filmmaker – it’s just thathis films don’t speak to me. Many have stated that MOONRISE KINGDOM is his most accessible film, and while I did like it more than most of his other films, it is still not my favorite; that honor goes to HOTEL CHEVALIER, the short film he created as a prelude to THE DARJEELING LIMITED. In HOTEL CHEVALIER the characters seem genuine albeit flawed. In all of his other films I find the characters forced, neither real nor endearing.
“The two leads of MOONRISE KINGDOM are children, pre-pubescents who run away from home with thoughts of getting married. That is both a boon to buying into the Anderson mode of storytelling and a handicap for taking the plight of his characters at all seriously. We’re definitely in absurdist territory here. And that I found delightful. This time around I tried to just have fun and not philosophize. That worked…briefly. The bottom line is: while I very much enjoyed the film while I was in the theater, I found it unmemorable a few days later.
“So if you are thinking of seeing MOONRISE KINGDOM, read Chris Kriofske’s review beforehand. He has a true appreciation of Wes Anderson. Meanwhile, I’ll keep hoping my Anderson lightbulb will engage so I can someday join the fan club. 3.5 cats”
Hilary says: “I am generally an Anderson fan, but this one didn’t really do anything for me.
“I think it has some great elements: the staging of ‘Noye’s Fludde’, Tilda Swinton as Social Services, Bob Balaban as Narrator, and Bill Murray as the preppy New England version of the worn-down, slightly drunk, cuckolded husband he’s played before for Anderson.
‘The whole is not equal to the sum of its parts, but as always with Anderson the incredible level of detail of the parts is pretty amazing.”
Jason says: “I kind of find the level of detail is what puts me off with Wes Anderson, and made MOONRISE KINGDOM somewhat short of great. He goes for quirky and a light touch, but he can strangle the life out of those things because he has to make sure you understand right away how precise and clever what he’s done is, rather than realizing it when looking back on a second viewing and just enjoying it as it happens. It’s oddly engaging and distancing at the same time.
“Is it giving too much away for me to wonder if Wes Anderson has reconnected with his father and gotten the hug he so clearly craved (or maybe become a doting father to kids of his own, redefining the relationship for him)? I ask because while FANTASTIC MR. FOX was much less about yearning for that connection than his previous films, and this one SPOILERS! actually ends on a father figure coming into a boy’s life, rather than dwelling on the loss of one !SRELIOPS.
“It’s nice to see Anderson seem to get past certain hang-ups, at times addressing them very directly – when Kara Hayward’s Suzy talks about finding an orphan’s life romantic, Jared Gilman’s Sam says he loves her, but she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and maybe that’s Anderson scolding himself a little. Of course, he’s not past everything; he’s still so precise and controlling in his direction as to nearly choke the life out of the movie. He does avoid that, but sometimes only by the thinnest of margins, although he has always lived right on the border of deadpan and dead.
“That’s a bit more negative an attitude than the movie likely deserves, though. As much as the adults are generally characters that the great cast doesn’t really have to exert themselves much to play (although Bruce Willis and Edward Norton both play their characters like they have much larger roles), the kids are pretty wonderful. One thing Anderson does that’s really impressive is that he allows them to be both misunderstood eccentrics and genuinely troubled. There’s a flashback where we see that Suzy is not just an outsider because she’s smarter than the people around her that is genuinely shocking, but Anderson allows it to inform rather than dominate the rest of the movie. Hayward and Gilman, in addition to anchoring the large chunks of the movie when no adults are around, have as much chemistry as anybody has ever had in a Wes Anderson movie.
“The real romance in a Wes Anderson picture is between Anderson and his imagery. Cinematographer Robert Yeoman and production designer Adam Stockhausen are the matchmakers here, and from the start, it’s clear there’s something special going on. There are lots of kid’s-eye-view camera angles and sharp, noticeable pans, as well as a frequently deliberate fuzziness that comes from using wide shots and 16mm film. Anderson and Stockhausen (re)create a child’s 1965 just as obsessively as one might imagine – I’m pretty sure some of the props are exact matches for things my frugal, never-throw-anything-away grandmother still had in her house a generation later – but their best work comes out as absurdity. There are shots that seem more cartoon-inspired than anything in FANTASTIC MR. FOX, and others which are almost like brainteasers: I half-suspect that split-screens of telephone calls were shot by building half of two sets, putting them together, and having the camera placed just so, and half suspect that they were stitched together with a computer to look like that’s the case.
“That’s kind of how Wes Anderson movies work, for better or for worse – they’re the result of so much attention to detail and droll wit that one can often actually feel empathy for the characters crowded out. MOONRISE KINGDOM manages to survive that, and often even thrive.
“I think it’s the best thing he’s done since THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS, and it makes me hope for better things down the road because it feels like he got a lot of stuff out of his system with this. But I also really wish a similar film from Taiwan, STARRY STARRY NIGHT, would get a little more play in the US (I saw it at Fantasia, but it got a tiny NYC/LA/Seattle/maybe SF release earlier) – it’s also got a troubled boy and girl who run away together and a lot of imaginative imagery, but its characters felt more like real people than the well-programmed robots Anderson tends toward.”
Julie says: “I loved this one too. I suppose the only criticism I have which is a somewhat big one and mirror’s Bruce’s, is that a few days later I had almost forgotten about the film But when I finished the movie I felt it was a 5! Very creative, very funny, loved loved loved the set design and production…. and I was intrigued to know the final outcome. Some great performances by some well known and unknowns. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will give it a 4.97 cats”