Enid Blyton on Acid

Rating: 7/10 (2 June 2012)

An interesting, entertaining, but not wholly satisfying movie.
Anderson offers his take on what seems a very English postwar style of children's literature. With a supporting soundtrack that includes Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and a plot that includes the inclusion of Britten's Noye's Fludde, Anderson manages to reflect a very middle class English sensibility of the 1950s and 1960s. A quirky prepubescent love story, Moonrise Kingdom has some fine acting from its two lead actors, particularly the deadpan Kara Haywood as Suzy, who has no doubt kick started a a great future in the movies. The support cast is faultless; Willis, underrated as ever, is fantastic as the police captain, Norton takes on the role of Scoutmaster Ward with gusto, reminding us of his comedic abilities, and there's a great cameo from the wonderful Harvey Keitel.
And Andersons realisation of the story is underpinned by the efforts of his regular cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman and art director Gerald Sullivan. We get the studied formal directing we have become used to from Anderson, and it works. Its a lovely movie to look at. Its big problem is that it's not as funny as Anderson obviously believes it is, quirky surrealism is not enough to carry a film. If its meant to be funny then the audience need to laugh. Its other problem is, as with all of Anderson's films that I have seen, that it it is stuck in a safe white middle class milieu, that reflects a world that perhaps Anderson wished existed and perhaps does for a significant wealthy, white, middle class group of people who can separate themselves from the uncomfortable realities of modern America.
Entertaining and fun but hardly a classic of modern American cinema. Anderson ploughs his own furrow, one that is curiously annoying and rather unsatisfying.