Directed By: Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenanbaums)
Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances
McDormand, Bill Murray
Rating:
PG-13 for sexual content and smoking
Synopsis: In a small New England town in 1965, 12-year-olds Sam (Gilman) and
Suzie (Hayward) run away together after falling in love through numerous
letters to each other. This causes Sam’s Khaki Scouts leader, Scout Master Ward
(Norton), and the town police officer, Captain Sharp (Willis), to start an
island-wide search for them.
REVIEW
Andrew:
Hello readers! Tonight Sarah and I saw the latest film from director Wes
Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom. It’s been a few years since Anderson’s last
film, the stop-motion The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and even
longer since his last live-action film, The Darjeeling Limited. In typical
Anderson style, his new movie looked pretty quirky going in but had a great
looking cast with Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Frances McDormand and Bill Murray to
name a few.
Essentially it’s about a
love story about a pair of 12-year-olds, Sam and Suzie, who run away together.
Sarah, I’m having a little trouble figuring out exactly what I think about Moonrise
Kingdom. I don’t know how I feel about it.
Sarah:
Well I do, I’ll take it from here. I felt that this movie was like watching a play.
Very much like watching an on-stage performance. I actually felt like it would
transition to the stage VERY easily. The scenes were very well crafted to be
very small scale, which was very cool. I loved the way this movie was filmed.
It’s supposed to take place in the mid-1960s and there were shots and scenes
where…I’m not sure if they used a filter or what, but Anderson was able to make
it look like he filmed it in the 1960s.
There’s a beach scene at one
point where the shots of Suzie looks like (to me at least) Ursula Andress in Dr.
No. Just the softness of the edges and the way the whole scene looked.
It was really, really creative the way the scenes were portrayed and written
out. It seemed to be between the two main characters, Sam and Suzie, that a lot
of the dialogue was ad-libbed. Like they were given the scene and were just
meant to act out the scene on their own. It was very impressive.
I really enjoyed it. There
was a lot more depth to it than I expected going in.
Many scenes in Moonrise Kingdom feel like they belong on a stage, particularly many of the smaller, intimate scenes between Suzy and Sam. |
A: On
a very technical level there are a lot of things that I agree with you on. It
LOOKS great, which is par for the course for Wes Anderson. It DOES look like it
was filmed on old stock, which we’ll have to look up later and see if it was.
I’m curious to see if it was filmed on old film. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Moonrise
Kingdom was filmed on 16mm film.) Wes Anderson is notable for being
very particular and being very precise with what all is in his shots – the
costumes, the sets, everything is done on purpose. All for the character of not
only the actual characters, but also the setting of the stories and atmosphere
he wants to convey.
So a lot of the technical
aspects I agree with you, were great. But I think the thing for me is it comes
down to…I’ve never been a BIG fan of Anderson’s quirky scripts and style. The
way his characters speak, in particular. I know it’s all done completely on
purpose but it all just sounds fake and forced to me. Not to say a lot of the
lines and the situations in the film weren’t funny, because they WERE, but I
think that’s also a testament to the actors themselves. There were a lot of
funny actors in this film, including Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman.
So my hesitation comes from
the fact that I like a lot of the aspects of the film, but I wasn’t buying the
story a whole lot and some scenes just felt out of place to me. Like a scene
towards the end where a flood happens. Things just kind of happen for no
particular reason, at least it appeared so to me, and it took me out of things.
It’s a good movie and I
enjoyed watching it, but I don’t know exactly how I feel about it until I
process it more. Maybe I’ll have to see it again to fully know how to say what
I want to say about it.
S:
Maybe. I don’t mind his scripts. I find them to be choppy with a lot of quick,
tight words that you have to catch. They’re meant to be funny…but again I think
there’s a suspension of disbelief that you need to have. That’s why I was okay
with it, because it was like watching a stage play.
I know it’s fake, but it was
kind of nice to watch a movie that acted LIKE movie. It was meant to be
fictional. There are things that happen where I go, “Yeah, that wouldn’t happen
in real life,” but that’s nice.
A: I
think, and again this could totally just be me, but my favorite character in
the movie was Bruce Willis’ Captain Sharp because I felt through most of the
movie his lines and his delivery felt the most normal. It kind of showed me a
different side of Bruce Willis I haven’t seen in a while either, which I liked.
But you know what? Here’s
the thing: I really, really enjoyed The Fantastic Mr. Fox and I loved
the dialogue in it.
|
S: See
and I didn’t! I didn’t get it at all. Maybe if I went back and watched it again
having seen this and having a better idea of how Anderson writes, then I would
probably understand that one a bit better.
I think it’s pretty amazing
that this guy can go, “I have this movie I want you to be in,” and the
A-listers come running. That’s a testament to him as a director. So I was
impressed. I guess you have to
process it a little more and come back to it. I definitely think this will make
the Oscar circuits…
A:
Yeah, but it’s a lot different than your normal Oscar bait. I’ll be interested
to see what the pundits say as we get close to award season, when the other big
stuff starts coming out.
Real quick, I do want to say
I loved the cast, which you mentioned. Again, Willis was my favorite but I also
really liked Ed Norton. I thought he was hilarious as Scout Master Ward. Murray
and McDormand played well of each other, Gilman and Hayward were very cute
together, and even the other Khaki Scouts were good.
S:
Yes, I really liked the boys who played all the other Khaki Scouts. They were
probably my favorite.
A: So
overall we enjoyed it, but I wasn’t in love with it.
S:
It’s definitely not one you have to see in theatres, but you SHOULD see it at
some point.
FINAL VERDICT: Netflix it.
(Out of Five clapboards) |
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