Moonrise Kingdom

Director: Wes Anderson
Screenplay: Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
Stars: Jared Gilman (Sam Shakusky), Kara Hayward (Suzy Bishop), Edward Norton (Scout Master Ward), Bruce Willis (Captain Sharp), Bill Murray (Walt Bishop), Tilda Swinton (Social Services), Jason Schwartzman (Cousin Ben), Frances McDormand (Laura Bishop), Harvey Keitel (Commander Pierce), Bob Balaban (Narrator), Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (Roosevelt), L.J. Foley (Izod), Charlie Kilgore (Lazy Eye), Jake Ryan (Lionel), Neal Huff (Jed), Gabriel Rush (Skotak), Tommy Nelson (Nickleby), James Wilcox (Scout Master)
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Year of Release: 2012
Country: U.S.
Moonrise Kingdom Criterion Collection Blu-Ray
Moonrise KingdomAt the time of its release, Moonrise Kingdom was Wes Anderson’s best work in a decade, returning him to the nimble territory precariously balanced between fairy-tale whimsy and genuine emotion that made Rushmore (1998) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) such unique treats. His then-recent live-action films, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007), both felt increasingly stale, as Anderson seemed to be investing too much in the visually arresting, hyper-detailed tableau of his pseudo-worlds and not enough in the emotional undercurrents that made the characters living in those worlds worth caring about. Both of those films featured plenty of familial pathos and dysfunction, Anderson’s favorite dramatic tropes, but they felt either forced or lost in the mise-en-scène, as Anderson struggled to reconcile the patent fakery of his cinematic environments with the real-life issues of familial bonding and community he sought to address.

Just as The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Anderson’s charming foray into stop-motion animation, rejuvenated his aesthetic by fully embracing its cartoonishness, Moonrise Kingdom hums because it centers on preteen protagonists whose simultaneously adult-like intensities and childish naïveté is a welcome departure from Anderson’s fixation on childlike adults working through their self-inflicted melodramas (the film is very much a piece with Rushmore, in this respect). Granted, there are plenty of childlike adults hanging around the margins, and they are funny precisely because they play supporting roles to Sam Shakusky and Suzy Bishop (newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward), a pair of misfit 12-year-olds who decide to run away together because they recognize they simply don’t fit in anywhere else.

As with most of Anderson’s previous films, Moonrise Kingdom takes place in a hermetically sealed world of his own making, in this case a fictional island off the coast of New England called New Penzance in the summer of 1965. Only 12 miles wide, New Penzance has no paved roads and is home to Camp Ivanhoe, a summer retreat for preteen Khaki Scouts led by Edward Norton’s sweet-and-stern Scout Master Randy Ward. Sam, a resilient orphan whose oversized owl glasses and penetrating stare don’t exactly endear him to the rest of the troop, runs away after exchanging letters for a year with Suzy, a bookish and temperamental local girl who lives in a picturesque red woodframe house with her three younger brothers and self-absorbed, detached parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). Sam and Suzy’s disappearance sets off a comical search led by Scout Master Ward and Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the island’s lone police officer, who, despite being not too bright, is very well meaning in his intrepid search for the missing children.

The screenplay, which was penned by Anderson and Roman Coppola (who previously collaborated on The Darjeeling Limited), follows a fairly predictable path in which Sam and Suzy move from fellow-outcast friendship to an increasingly intense puppy love that puts to shame the distance, lies, sadness, and awkwardness that defines the adult relationships from which they are fleeing (however bright and fanciful Anderson’s films are on the surface, they are always constructed around a deep well of melancholy). While irony still abounds, Moonrise Kingdom is an idealist romance that takes us back to the days of first love when everything seemed new and possible and unsullied, when an us-against-them mentality was romantic, rather than paranoid. Gilman and Hayward, both of whom were making their screen debuts, are wonderfully naturalistic in their roles, and even though we recognize them as obvious creations of an adult intelligence reaching back into the innocence of childhood, their romance feels entirely genuine; it has a sweetness to it that is only possible when the rest of the world is left behind, which is precisely what they are trying to do. The idealization of their relationship finds a fitting match with Anderson’s aesthetic, which tends toward the self-consciously stagey. It’s a storybook romance in a film that looks and feels like a moving storybook (having been shot on Super 16mm, the images have a grainy, tactile quality that parallels the rough paper of the mid-century adventure novels the film frequently invokes).

Because Anderson keeps the film’s attention largely focused on Sam and Suzy, his trademark quirkiness takes on an aura of enchantment, rather than forced oddity. Some character traits and events have little purpose outside of their inherent humor—Laura speaking to her family mostly through a megaphone; Tilda Swinton as a social services agent who always refers to herself in the first person as “Social Services,” as if she literally embodies the concept of government possession of orphaned children; Bob Balaban as a random narrator in a Steve Zissou red cap who supplies us with random information and dark foreshadowing; and the amusingly bizarre parade of Khaki Scouts whose various projects around Camp Ivanhoe range from the ridiculous (a Rube Goldbergian latrine), to the sublime (a treehouse perilously perched on a few feeble branches atop a towering tree)—but their presence in the margins makes them go down quick and easy. In other words, the quirk doesn’t hog the limelight, allowing the story’s underlying humanity to shine through. Anderson didn’t necessarily evolve much with Moonrise Kingdom (although he does seem to nod toward the limitations of his art when Sam blatantly rejects Suzy’s idealized view of an orphaned life), but he did demonstrate that, with the right material, his familiar cinematic approach could yield wonderful dividends.

Moonrise Kingdom Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Aspect Ratio1.85:1
AudioEnglish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround
SubtitlesEnglish
Supplements
  • Audio commentary by director Wes Anderson, actors Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and Jason Schwartzman, and co-writer Roman Coppola
  • Exploring the Set documentary
  • Storyboard animatics and narrator tests
  • Auditions
  • Miniatures
  • “Welcome to New Penzance” featurette
  • “Set Tour With Bill Murray” featurette
  • “Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde” featurette
  • Norton’s iPhone videos from the set
  • “Animated Books” featurette
  • “Cousin Ben” featurette
  • Trailer
  • Insert booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a selection of commentary from young writers, along with a map of New Penzance Island and other ephemera
  • DistributorThe Criterion Collection / Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
    SRP$39.99
    Release DateSeptember 22, 2015

    VIDEO & AUDIO
    A brief comparison between Criterion’s edition of Moonrise Kingdom, which boasts a new digital transfer from the original camera negative that was supervised by Wes Anderson, and the 2012 Universal disc did not reveal any significant differences. Like the 2012 disc, the film looks quite splendid on the Criterion disc. The film was originally shot in Super 16mm, and the transfer from the original elements allows us to appreciate the fineness of the grain and the detail, which would have been altered in a 35mm blowup. Befitting the film’s whimsical, fairy-tale-like tone, its images are beautifully rendered like illustrations in a storybook, with strong, vibrant colors, nicely rendered detail, and excellent contrast. The overall palette of the film is slightly yellowish, which is in keeping with the film’s tone and its summertime setting. There are also no complaints about the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1-channel surround soundtrack, which was remastered at 24-bit from the original digital audio master files. The six-channel soundtrack capably handles surround and ambient effects and gives the eclectic musical choices (particularly the classical music) a strong sense of presence, while keeping dialogue clean and clear.
    SUPPLEMENTS
    When Universal released its Blu-ray of Moonrise Kingdom three years ago, the supplements were notably light, consisting of only three short promotional featurettes that had previously appeared on the film’s web site. At the time there was speculation that all the good stuff was being reserved for a forthcoming Criterion edition, and that speculation has turned out to be spot on. As with Criterion’s previous collaborations with Anderson, the Moonrise Kingdom Blu-ray is loaded with supplements and ephemera that should delight Wes Anderson fans. First up is an audio commentary that brings Anderson together with actors Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and Jason Schwartzman, and co-writer Roman Coppola. There is also a 17-minute featurette Exploring the Set, which allows us to fully appreciate the intricate detail of the film’s various settings. We also get five storyboard animatics (Opening Sequence, Church Flashbacks, The Island of New Penzance, The Island of St Jack Wood), five minutes of auditions, a short featurette focusing on the film’s use of miniatures, and another short featurette on Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, the opera we see being performed by children near the beginning of the film. Held over from the Universal DVD are the featurettes “Welcome to New Penzance,” which involves a tour of the island with Bob Balaban’s Narrator, and the self-explanatory “Set Tour With Bill Murray.” Additional new supplements include nearly 20 minutes of iPhone video shot during production by Edward Norton, a featurette in which portions of the fictional books read by Suzy are animated, a comical bit that gives Jason Schwartzman’s Cousin Ben more screen time, and the original theatrical trailer. It all comes housed in a very nicely design Digipack that includes an insert booklet with an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a selection of commentary from young writers, a map of New Penzance Island, and a class-picture-like photo card of all the main characters.

    Copyright ©2015 James Kendrick

    Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick

    All images copyright © Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

    Overall Rating: (3.5)




    James Kendrick

    James Kendrick offers, exclusively on Qnetwork, over 2,500 reviews on a wide range of films. All films have a star rating and you can search in a variety of ways for the type of movie you want. If you're just looking for a good movie, then feel free to browse our library of Movie Reviews.


    © 1998 - 2024 Qnetwork.com - All logos and trademarks in this site are the property of their respective owner.