MOONRISE KINGDOM

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Grade: B-
Starring: Bruce Willis, Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban and Harvey Keitel
PREMISE: Two lonely kids with a mutual romantic attraction run away from home, causing the formation of search parties and social chaos while a huge thunderstorm bears down on their small town.

RATED PG-13 for intense emotional content, some strong sexual content, some blood, and language

Back in February, I reviewed a movie called The Beaver, a peculiar dramedy that, despite a very unique key premise, seemed to really be a dissertation on loneliness. The incident that set the plot in motion was a lonely man's adopting of a beaver puppet as an object of attachment, and, eventually, a sort of alter ego, something he infused with a fake voice and fake personality to try to charm his way back into the lives of those he cared about while shielding himself from directly receiving criticism or hurt. In the film, he bumped shoulders with other lonely characters, like his long-suffering wife, his self-mutilating son, and his son's secretly-lonely love interest.

Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom seems to be a once-removed cousin of that film, with a basic plot premise-two lovestruck preteens run away from home together-really being used to examine the loneliness some (maybe all) people feel, and how we deal, or don't deal, with it. It's not at as dark as The Beaver, but it does come with an air of hopelessness. We know people like these characters, who are lonely. They have no one to talk to. They seem "unfixable". They seem hopeless. The movie telling their story might be darker if it weren't told by Wes Anderson, the director of some of the quirkier, more idiosyncratic works of the last decade and a half, including The Life Aquatic, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Royal Tennenbaums. I'm suddenly interested to see those movies after watching Moonrise Kingdom, to see how they're put together, and what sort of morals they have. After all, Moonrise is an intriguing but sometimes-disorienting blend of drama, adventure, romance, comedy, and even fantasy, the likes of which I'm not sure I've ever seen before. This uneven ground seems to negate its effect, yet it leaves you thinking about it long after it's over.

Plot: One summer morning on the New England island of New Penzance, a Boy Scout Master (Edward Norton) discovers that one of his boys has gone AWOL. The boy in question, Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) is the least popular boy in his troop, an orphan with a history of self-isolation and possible mental illness. The boy's disappearance seems random, but, after another runaway is reported, the clues start coming together. The other runaway is a girl named Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward), the perpetually-angry oldest child of a well-to-do but dysfunctional family that lives on the other side of the small island. After the girl's parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray) find a box of letters the two kids wrote to each other after meeting the previous summer, the local police captain (Bruce Willis) deduces that they've run away together, that their plan is to never be found. Reporting the case to higher authorities seems to only bring bad news, though, as Sam's foster parents have decided to release him from their care and don't want him back, and the Social Services agent (Tilda Swinton) they contact believes the boy needs time in a corrective penitentiary, or at least some shock therapy. The race is on to find the boy and girl and sort them out-especially with a big storm brewing-but the boy and girl aren't scared. Despite their respective quirks (he's a socially-awkward extrovert and she's a hostile introvert), they've found a mutual kinship in each other, and even begun to take timid steps into the riptides of romance. And just chasing these two lonely kids down gives all the adults in the story (the girl's parents, the scout master, the police captain) cause to re-examine the loneliness in their own lives.

What Works?
The actors are all solid, even though a few of them (like Murray) are shoehorned into tiny roles. Norton, in particular, is superb as a scout master who suddenly realizes his by-the-book approach to leading the kids leaves him unable to identify with them on a personal level. Willis is good as a lonely man who can identify with the rebellious, lonely boy, and McDormand has a few poignant moments as the girl's dissatisfied mother. The kids themselves, in roles that are bold and edgy for such young actors, are effectively embodied by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward. Neither performance is particularly flashy, but both actors convincingly embody that loneliness and alienation many of us feel, even if we don't admit it.

The themes that I've waxed poetic about (okay, whether or not it was, indeed, 'poetic' is up to you to decide) are, as they were in The Beaver and even in the classic American Beauty, are touching and relevant. The problems are real-life, with no easy solutions, and yet everyone sensible is able to realize that electro-shock therapy is not the answer. The movie also defies logic and cliche at every turn, the intriguing dynamic between these two awkward kids slowly reveals itself, there are a few hearty laughs, and the ending is both happy and, realistically, not perfect. There's still a sense of disquiet, even if things are better than they were.

What Doesn't Work?
Everyone involved with this film might have benefited from a more straight-forward approach to the material. Give everyone (especially the kids) more dialogue, make things a little more realistic, ditch that odd mockumentary-style approach brought on by the occasional presence of a narrator (Bob Balaban) who talks directly to the screen, and make up your mind what genre you're aiming for. A few moments border on absurdist fantasy, a few others are head-scratchers, and the movie often becomes tantalizingly close to really good before veering off. Also, it definitely isn't necessary to show two kids groping each other in the throes of youthful lust.

Like I said, I'm interested to see Wes Anderson's other films, and see if this barely-there quasi-realistic approach is his usual forte (my brother, who saw the film with me, kept saying it reminded him of The Fantastic Mr. Fox, one of Anderson's earlier films). I'd have liked for it to have been more straight forward, just to allow viewers to embrace it a bit more. The theme would have still come through.

Content: Most people are going to be bored and/or turned off by the abounding quirks of the script and style, and I wouldn't recommend it to just about anybody. However, other than the one edgy scene of the kids in their undergarments touching each other, there's nothing kids can't see. I just don't know that they'd want to see this movie.

Bottom Line (I Promise): Given a quirky (some might say artsy) touch by director Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom trips over itself despite featuring an intriguing premise and some poignant, relevant themes, yet it's still a work that will stay with you. It may even make you want to reach out to some lonely person you know. Most of the characters in this film would appreciate that.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Directed by Wes Anderson
Written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
Rated PG-13
Length: 94 minutes