Summer Lovin'

The emotional puzzle of new-found love can hit us at any age.  It's an occurrence where we don't know what to do with it at first.  But, if the love becomes stronger after a while, instinct will have us act upon it, with the potential consequences placed at the back of our minds for the time being.  No matter what the age, love is a magnificent thing.  There is, however, a point in our lives when our amorous selves are at their most confused: the preteen years.  These years bring a new experience to young ones as they learn what it's like to have feelings for another boy or girl.

These feelings, which we experience with equal doses of awkwardness and joy, are celebrated in Wes Anderson's adolescent-angst fable, Moonrise Kingdom.  It's a story of young love that's punctuated with the traditional quirky touches that are common with this director.  Although it's an inventive and different film compared to other screen romances, it nonetheless carries the same, general arc (but in a more engaging way) that most relationships go through, which includes locking eyes at the first encounter, going against parents' wishes and having an exploration of the world around them.

In the summer of 1965, 12-year-old Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) is the least popular member in his boy-scout troop on the New England island of New Penzance.  One day, he decides to run away from his troubles and travel across the island with his new girlfriend, Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward).  While with each other, they are allowed to express their love and be themselves, without having to worry about what their parents or anyone else might say.  After the adults find out about this, however, they will do whatever they can to keep them apart.

Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward have acting abilities that soar far above their very short time thus far in film.  In their first leading roles, it's wildly impressive to watch them carry the importance of the story without ever letting it slip from their grips. Watching their love for each other unfurl is to see a beautiful thing happening, as the two discover what it is to love and be loved.  Seeing them rebel against their guardians displays a bravery that goes beyond the years of these characters as they fight to be allowed to engage in what makes them happy.

The two have their character differences: Sam is a skilled outdoorsman, and Suzy is an avid reader; Sam lives with foster parents, while Suzy lives with her biological family; and Sam wishes he had an actual family, while Suzy wishes to be an orphan, like the characters she reads about.  Besides them both sharing an adventurous spirit, their central similarity is that they both want to feel a connection to someone, since they are both devoid of this when they are at home.  The adults believe that the two children are disturbed, when they are simply misunderstood.  Their personalities share some qualities as to what you might find in a children's novel, since Sam and Suzy try to break away from how their parents and peers view them and go search for their own identities.

If the relationship between Sam and Suzy is a newly sparked firework, the relationship of Suzy's parents, played exquisitely by Frances McDormand and Bill Murray, is a marriage that is losing its flare, and is slowly and silently unraveling.  McDormand is introduced as a sort of drill-sergeant mother who calls her family to dinner with a megaphone, and is basically the one who wears the pants in the family.  She is more aware of what is happening with her matrimony, and her views on hers and Suzy's romantic relationships are shared in a mother-daughter conversation later on in the film.  Bill Murray is wonderful as Suzy's father who floats between being passive and having occasional outbursts.

Edward Norton, who is excellent in one of his few comedic roles, plays the fastidious and incompetent scout leader with a mouth as clean as a 1950s sitcom character.  Bruce Willis' role as the island's cop is unlike the rigid law enforcers he usually plays.  Instead of some of his past roles where he played a more macho police officer, in this film, his character is considerably more easygoing and kindhearted.  There are reasons for that which I won't disclose because they factor greatly into the story.

Robert Yeoman's cinematography has an interesting use of panning shots in the film's opening scene.  The camera moves swiftly from left to right as it takes in the interior of Suzy's house and the members of her family as they engage in their everyday activities.  It even moves smoothly up and down to different levels of the house.  During this scene, the camera is positioned at a distance that creates a medium shot that gives a view to the rooms and hallways.

The part of his cinematography that is most notable is the eye-line match as we see what some of the characters see when they look through a set of binoculars.  There is a scene when Sam asks Suzy why she likes to use them, to which she says that they help her to see things really close, even if they are not far away.  Not only is this proficient camerawork, but it also compliments one of the film's themes of having what you want close at hand and making sure that what you want will be there for you.

Wes Anderson's and Roman Coppola's screenplay deals heavily with how everyone is prone to making mistakes, children and adults alike.  Sam and Suzy are innocent in their actions, not thinking of what will happen in the long term.  They are just living out what they are feeling at this turning-point in their growing-up.  The problem with the adults doing everything they can to keep them separated doesn't just affect their relationship, but it also poses a threat for them to mature.  If the parents don't allow their children to make mistakes, they won't be able to learn from past experiences.  Although the adults are keen on severing ties between Sam and Suzy, they are making the mistake of not allowing their children to live a normal period of their development that involves finding out about who they are as people.

The film resembles an enchanting cross between Katherine Paterson's novel Bridge to Terabithia and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the latter dealing with young lovers meeting against their guardians' wishes, and the former being about a boy and girl who create a secret place for them to be themselves.  The two plot elements colorfully mesh, having these two classic stories of adolescent love echo in Moonrise Kingdom.  There is also an ingenious use of the tale of Noah's flood towards the film's end that ties into how Sam and Suzy first meet.

Wes Anderson creates his films in such a way that encourages the audience to think during the film in order to understand what he is trying to say.  He doesn't make his messages obvious, and with every peculiar thing that happens in the film, we have to figure out how it all relates.  Anderson's characters bring a pleasurable experience into deciphering their motivations and actions and how such things will affect the outcome of the narrative.  His distinctive kind of comedy in this film has some occasionally darker content dipped into it, which sheds a light on the sides of Sam and Suzy that the adults think are troubled.  

With all of this going on, Moonrise Kingdom is more than just about two children finding love and sneaking off together.  The film demands to be seen in order to realize what else it contains.  The complex and mature nature of the two leads matches that of the world that Anderson has created.  It's a blissfully creative world that you won't want to leave once you enter.

Final grade: A