4 out of 5

Directed by: Wes Anderson

With Bottle Rocket, Wes Anderson defined his template of the wandering misfit: promises offered to us via storybook imaginings of how things “should” operate, only to crumble under the weight of reality.  Anderson hasn’t since returned to the slight genre feel of Rocket (which nibbed at being a crime flick), coming closer to his eventual niche with the brilliant Rushmore.  Rushmore allowed Anderson to more fully realize the highs and lows he was attempting with his debut flick, as well as more clearly presenting – through its cast – the comparison of our wants and desires in youth and supposed maturity.  Alas (at least in my eyes), the success of Rushmore gave the director the confidence to keep plumbing the depths of that theme, which led to a slew of films (starting with his next, Tenenbaums) that shifted his obsessions to adult aged dudes, meaning we now had an auteur of highly visually stylized and hiply scored flicks about man-children.  Anderson was the respectable Apatow, and without the genre framework of Bottle Rocket, he went full-fledged into his head.  The look and feel of those films is instantly identifiable and, admittedly, at one with the messages portrayed.  But while Rushmore hit me in the gut, I never connected with the subsequent movies.  They just felt too indulgent.  An accurate attribute, perhaps, for the generation which did seem to connect with them.  (Of which I am a part, and indulgently writing these here reviews, as I so often point out.)  (Weeeee)

Moonrise Kingdom is a reprieve.  It’s Anderson’s best and most honest work since Rushmore, and perhaps even superior to that film in how it’s stripped of the adulthood comparisons (the justifications for existing, if I’m trying to be all analytical), and presented almost exclusively as the tale of two young lovers.  Like Rushmore – like all of Wes’ movies – it’s hampered by a need to wrap things up with a smile, so the bittersweetness and emotional impact of its opening chapter is trimmed by the wrap up of the second half, but by winkily wrapping the whole thing in a kid’s adventure theme (the lead actress reads to us from her books, partioning the film with her recitations; scenes pan into and out from illustrations and paintings that would be chapter headings in such a book; Bob Balaban – honestly cast as ‘The Narrator’ – sets the scenes for us like a radio serial announcer), it skirts around this stunting, for the most part.  It knows it’s not the real world, this time, so even the fanciful set design for which we know Wes feels just right.

Because we can all relate with the innocence of the girl-meets-boy to which we’re privvy, the famous actors casted slot in perfectly.  They’re not the stars; they’re not meant to anchor the narrative, like Billy Murray in Rushmore, rather to bring different generations (Ed Norton, Bruce Wilis) to reflect upon and recognize something we all wish we had.  They can relate to it too, and they know it’s not their story.  Meanwhile, Wes and Roman Coppola’s play-like dialogue sounds just right for the young actors, instead of the forced quaintness that crept into the flicks I skipped over above.

I realize that part of Wes’ shtick is to end on a smile.  He likes sadness, but he likes happy endings as well, and so enjoys bringing a film audience full circle.  Which is a grand tradition.  Still, when he achieves something so close to the purity and honesty that’s apparent in Moonrise Kingdom – something that’s absolutely enhanced by his gorgeousely nuanced aesthetics – there’s the hope that he’ll want to see the story through to an equally honest conclusion, because the film crosses a line where it no longer feels daring.  Not that I know what that conclusion would be.  But I’ll leave that up to someone as inventive as Wes to – hopefully, one day, on some future film – figure out.