Moonrise Kingdom

I am a huge Wes Anderson fan, so I have been excitedly awaiting his latest release, Moonrise Kingdom. It did not disappoint. If you have seen Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, you know what to expect here. A short simple story with strange characters and amazing art direction.

Moonrise Kingdom is set on a small vacation Island in New England, the year is 1965. A boy and girl meet at a local play, instantly fall in love (or something like it) and run away together. The boy is an orphan, with a lot of issues and the girl has parents, although I am sure she wishes she did not. We spend the next hour or so trying to find the kids with a strange mix of people: a very small town police officer, played by Bruce Willis; a strange scout master played by Ed Norton; two insufferable parents played by Bill Murray and Francis McDormand; and a short but excellently strange appearance by Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman.

The kids, Suzy and Sam, are played by Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman. They are great, but it is hard to call them the stars as you couldn't take out any one of the people I mentioned earlier and still have the same film. And as with all Anderson films, it's the art direction that is the star. Everything is perfectly curated, the house, the Island, the scout camp and the intermediary tours we receive from Bob Balaban as the narrator. If you are an Anderson, you'll love this film.