Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson’s latest is too cute for its own good
Wes Anderson remains trapped in the aquarium of his own imagination. A murky waterworld where saturated pastels and nostalgic pools of Norman Rockwell Americana drift on random currents of narrative, Anderson’s immersion in his own Life Aquatic is the central reason why Moonrise Kingdom feels waterlogged.
A kind-hearted and heavily contrived tribute to the pangs and piercing arrows of puppy love, Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of two kids (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) who fall hopelessly in love and plot to find happiness together.
It’s been a while since anyone attempted a solid round of childhood bonding that didn’t involve murder, Boo Radley redux, or boys eating too much pie.
Back in 1971, there was a British film called Melody that brought an adult sensibility to prepubescent pitter-patter as it showed two kids running away together, and pumping their way to freedom on a railway handcar.
These days, kids can’t run away without an Amber Alert. Even the kid that criss-crossed Manhattan in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close felt like an anachronism and a brewing case of parental neglect.
Perhaps Anderson was conscious of the emotional strain involved in a contemporary runaway story, or maybe he just likes to look back on the past because it looks hip on camera, but Moonrise Kingdom is built on a foundation of fleeting innocence.
Accessing the Snoopy prints and plaid threads of generational nostalgia, Anderson opens the tale in Maine, circa 1965, with a scene-establishing tracking shot that takes us through the house of the Bishops — an affluent family headed by two lawyers, played here by a fully contained Bill Murray and an entirely underused Frances McDormand.
The Bishops have a brood of boys and one girl, Suzy (Hayward), a rather surly youngster who likes to read and listen to records played on her brother’s portable phonograph.
They’re especially fond of one record in particular by Benjamin Britten, which explains classical music through a dated lecture and becomes something of an aural motif in this slow-paced, but often charming downbeat comedy.
The opening shot, which also shows off a 360-degree set, will remind Anderson fans of the overly convoluted Life Aquatic, which featured a similarly hermetic universe and an almost stage-like mise-en-scene.
Bill Murray played an aloof Jacques Cousteau figure in the former, and he seems to have pulled the same character off the shelf in this effort as he plays a disengaged patriarch and an apparent cuckold.
His wife, McDormand, is having an affair with the local sheriff, a kind-hearted lawman in retro glasses and a black and white station wagon played by the everdependable Bruce Willis.
Yet, as compelling as these grown-up pastiches may — or may not — be, Anderson hands the heart of the drama over to the pint-sized protagonists in pursuit of true love.
Sam and Suzy felt like lost souls before they found each other. Ostracized by their own peers, they feel the only chance they have at happiness is with each other, so they set up an elaborate plan to meet up in the middle of the summer.
When the movie opens, we’re not sure exactly what’s going on as Sam runs away from scout camp and Suzy disappears with the record player, but Anderson ensures there’s an element of overt suspense by giving us an omniscient narrator in a bright red coat who tells us this is the same summer a severe storm hit the eastern seaboard.
The narrator, played by Woody Allen regular and off-the-rack urbanite, Bob Balaban, is a problematic presence in the film. Elf-like and comic thanks to his fire engine red ensemble, Balaban’s deadpan exposition pushes the whole plot to the edge of the precipice.
Every time he appears, we’re all-too-conscious of the film’s oddball ambitions — and it’s more than a little irksome because it feels entirely false.
In fact, a lot of this movie feels forced, pretentious and just a little too cute for its own good. The result is a movie awash in great images, but entirely lacking any sense of authenticity, humanity or profound relevance.
Even the kids feel more like devices than any fragment of human spirit as they stare directly into the camera with all the emptiness of an American Apparel model.