Film review: Moonrise Kindgom
FANS of US auteur Wes Anderson
can breathe a sigh of relief. The director’s new film – his first live
action feature since 2007’s The Darjeeling Ltd – is bursting with his
signature touches, from self-conscious camera movements and highly
stylised, colour-coded costumes, to his obsessive use of maps, letters
and music and recognisable blend of irony and absurdism.
Critics
who accuse Anderson of superficiality, on the other hand, are unlikely
to find anything here to change their minds. Moonrise Kingdom has quirky
charm to spare, though, as it charts the experiences of two runaway
12-year-olds in love, on an island off the coast of New England in 1965,
and the impact on the adults who set out to reassert their authority
over them.
Bob Balaban pops up as a red-coated narrator to tell us
that in three days’ time, a storm will hit the island. Anderson duly
delivers, in a frenetic climax that sees Bruce Willis revert to
action-hero type, as he climbs a tower to rescue the children.
Not only is he saving them from the storm, but from Tilda Swinton’s Social Services.
Tall
and imposing, the eccentric British actress arrives dressed in a blue
cape and matching trousers and jacket, threatening to take the children
away. This is Swinton’s first time working with Anderson, and she
attacks her role with relish.
Elsewhere, familiar faces from the director’s past films include Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman.
However,
it is youngsters Jared Gilman, as a boy scout on the run, and Kara
Hayward, as his angst-ridden girlfriend, who give the film’s visual
inventiveness heart and soul, even when the action becomes frenetic and
unfocused.
Anderson’s souffle provided a frothy opening to the
65th Cannes Film Festival, but the tone is expected to darken
considerably when competition titles from Michael Haneke, John Hillcoat
and Lee Daniels, among others, hit the screen.
Cannes Film Festival
***
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