One of the most beautifully touching films of 2012

Rating: 8/10 (23 September 2012)

Bob Balaban's narrator begins, - in Brectian mannerisms talking directly to the camera - provider of information on the small fictitious New Penzance island, its topography, and landmarks. It is 1965, and in a few days a great storm will hit the island, a storm that could literally and metaphysically wash the islands stilted problems away. Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) - whom we later discover to be an orphan - escapes from the Khaki Scout camp, and rendezvous with Suzy (Kara Haywood), an island girl with emotional issues (a meeting that was organised the year before, when the met at a church play of Benjamin Britten's opera 'Noye's Fludde'). The pair of young lovers escape to go on an adventure together, and the island's inhabitants, including Suzy's overbearing, attorney parents, Walt and Laura Bishop (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand respectively), form a search party - the Khaki scout camp residents also form a militant party, in search of Sam, none of whom like him because he is "crazy" due to the death of his parents.
Wes Anderson brings his usual aesthetic idiosyncrasies to the film, his wondrously controlled tracking shots, tilts and pans; and the films narrative settings fill the screen with beautifully vivid, saturated autumnal colours - incidentally Suzy lives in a house at Summers End. As you might expect from the Khaki Scouts, led by Edward Norton's Scout Master Ward, their costumes are suitably coloured, and the costumes say much about the strong divisions between the adult and child world. Whilst the fugitive lovers form an incredibly poignant and mature relationship - and they are the most "adult" characters in the film - the literal adults simply force their own problems and insecurities on the young, particularly Suzy's parents, who's profession in law is brought into the home (amusingly McDormand's Laura, uses a megaphone to communicate in their family home).
In an early scene, the camera dolly's across the Khaki Scout camp, following Norton as he surveys the morning activities of his camp. Anderson's camera (as with the majority of his films) has presence in his films, practically becoming an arbiter of the comedy value in a scene. Here, we review, for example, a treehouse project of humorous proportions, as a collection of the boys build it precariously at the top of a very tall tree. Anderson's iconography, his frames and compositions also provide humour, and his aesthetic attention to detail is also highlighted in the sequence where Sam's escape from camp is discovered. The interior of the tents are set up like a bedroom, replete with decoration, seating, carpeted floors and storage. A small hole is discovered as exit point - a farcical moment indeed.
Aside from the aesthetic and character comedy, the films colour pallet perfectly reflects its more tender and meloncholly narrative moments. The somber and laconic police captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) is informed by Sam's foster father that he is no longer welcome back into their home, and he is left in his custody until Tilda Swinton's authoritarian, by-the-books, Social Services (that is her name, this is who she is) collects the boy for institutional correction - i.e. orphanage - perhaps electroshock therapy. In Sam and Suzy, we have a pair of troubled "problem" children, who find solace and connectedness in their relationship - away from the restrictions, and socially conventional "normal" of the seemingly more "problem" adult world. It is the culmination of these many strands that Anderson brings together so beautifully, in a film that knows when to be amusing, laugh-out-loud funny; when to be melancholy and poignant; when to be tender or forceful.
Along with the adult cast, who are typically brilliant (Murray has been a regular to Anderson's ensemble since 1998's Rushmore - and including Harvey Keitel's Scout Commander), have their performances outdone by a fantastic young cast. The film is, after all, one about children. Besides the terrific performances from the leads (at 12 and 13 years old, they show incredible maturity and humanism in their methodically minded characters), but also from the band of eccentrically uniformed Scouts. Anderson's previous film, the excellently twisted Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), was his first foray into animation, and looking at the dynamics of Moonrise Kingdom, the techniques seem to have influenced him slightly. Combining with his other idiosyncratic techniques, makes this one of the most delightfully charming films I have seem for some time - and could arguably be one of the most beautifully touching of 2012.
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