Over The Moon with Wes Anderson's latest

Rating: 10/10 (3 July 2012)

Being a Boy Scout for me was about a few basic things: learning how to survive away from home in far-away sounding places (Two Rivers, Herrick Lake, Big Timber, McDowell Woods), acting like an adult (or at least try to be one by swearing, cooking, telling jokes), forging friendships with guys older (Tom, Todd, Scott, Marc, Steve...) and younger (Nick, Jeff, Dave, Dan...) than me and also including my brothers (Dan, Pat), learning my place in the hierarchy of a patrol (Patrol Leader, Senior Patrol Leader, Troop Guide, Junior Assistant Scoutmaster) and learning my rank (Basic, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle), and hiking, swimming, chasing others, lighting fires, sharpening sticks, playing cards, and laughing. An aspect of Boy Scouting that I felt particularly drawn to included earning the merit badges with their panoply of textures and colors and skills displayed on my sash: Wilderness Survival, Personal Fitness, Scholarship, Mammal Study, Swimming...
Scouting, exploration, and hierarchy are all at the forefront of the new film Moonrise Kingdom. Appropriately, Wes Anderson's loving, meticulous, studied qualities as a filmmaker are in full display in Moonrise Kingdom with the island of New Penzance, of ancient trails, hidden inlets, precarious tree houses, and khaki scout badges plastered over waterfront walls. An extremely detailed review may ruin some of the movie's charms, so let me stick to the edges in my praise. Anderson's casting continues to be inspired: Edward Norton as Scout Master Ward, Harvey Keitel as his mentor Commander Pierce; Jared Gilman as troubled protagonist Sam, Bruce Willis as his mentor Island Police Captain Sharp; Kara Hayward as troubled protagonist Suzy and Bill Murray and Frances McDormand as her mentors and lawyer parents Walt and Laura Bishop. A narrator is played by Bob Balaban with great fun. A troop of aptly named khaki scouts delight in their roles: Roosevelt, Lazy-Eye, Nickleby, Panagle, Deluca to name a few. On the surface, this film concerns two kids running away and falling in love, and it concerns survival in all of its forms as both young Sam and Suzy break ranks with their respective troops and meet for an exploration of epic proportions in Anderson's self- contained universe, each with his or her respective baggage (quite literally for Suzy who brings a suitcase of her favorite books with her to read at night and a kitten). Sam with his coonskin hat, thick glasses, and encyclopedic knowledge of camping, smokes a corncob pipe of sorts, listening intently to Suzy read, telling her when she pauses after removing his pipe, "Go on. I'm listening." Naturally, both family and scouts pursue them with both hilarious and violent results. A massive storm is brewing off the coast of the island.
Anderson's filmmaking resembles the orchestra that bookends the film. With a wonderful premise, Anderson adds phenomenal sets (Suzy's house, Scout Master Ward's tent) to innovative art direction (fonts for signs, Norman Rockwell-ish lighthouses and colors, neckerchiefs and badges that look and feel just right), as well as wonderfully well-chosen disparate music. Each performance (a quietly sad Bruce Willis, a straightforward and rebellious Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, a wonderfully bossy Jason Schwartzman as Cousin Ben) is like an instrument added to the concert, playing a variation on the orchestral theme, separate and distinct yet unified to the overall piece. Anderson uses maps, handwritten letters, typewriters, badges, and costumes to add a texture to this film, a feel for it that jumps off the screen. He builds musically, fully integrating bugles and camp songs with Hank Williams, French songs, and classical. He never condescends to his lead characters or gives them simple arcs. Finding a pamphlet entitled "Coping with your Troubled Child," thinking that you're weird is a terrifying thing for anyone. Suzy and Sam resist easy answers.
A great film, like a great scout troop like mine, is a concert of voices, attitudes, fears, talents, and laughter. Each person, each instrument, each shot sequence does a variation on the theme, a repetition, a development, a connection. Wes Anderson's filmmaking embodies this fugue state, fully capturing the anarchic sense of young boys wandering the woods with weapons, the hierarchy of communities like families and troops, the heartbreak of a Scout Master forced to discipline while also acknowledging commendation (a wonderful moment with Edward Norton), as well as people (including the adults) not feeling at home anywhere and searching for the maps and compasses to navigate their ways. There were times in my life when I felt sanctuary while camping, while being around other scouts and the leaders, while being alone in the woods, while inching across a frozen river on two stretched cables, while earning Canoeing merit badge, Reading, Cooking, Environmental Science, Orienteering...
Moonrise Kingdom is the best film of 2012 so far. Go on, Wes Anderson. I'm listening.