#35 of 100 on my 100 Movies I’ve Never Seen Before Challenge (part II)
When the summer movie season began, this was easily one of the movies I was most looking forward to. Unfortunately, it took forever to get to Kansas City theatres. I am happy to say “Moonrise Kingdom” was well worth the wait. Wes Anderson delivers a funny, quirky and heart warming story about the awkwardness of young love.
Set in 1965, “Moonrise Kingdom” tells the story of Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) and Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman), to kids on the verge of being teenagers but they are wise beyond their years. Sam is an orphan who has bounced around from foster home to foster home. The only real home he has is with the Khaki Scouts but those boys don’t like him all that much either. Suzy is the daughter of two lawyers, played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand and the older sister to three brothers. Neither of these kids feel particularly understood or wanted in their home environments.
When they meet by chance one summer, they become pen pals and decide eventually to meet up and run away together. Sam ditches out on the Khaki Scouts prompting Scout master Ward (Ed Norton) to lead his troop and track down these kids. They are aided by the island cop (Bruce Willis), who just happens to be having an affair with Suzy’s mom.
The movie’s setting and time is what make “Moonrise Kingdom” so interesting, but it’s Bruce Willis that sells the depth of it. Yes, the kids are fantastic in this movie and each of them seem to have the acting chops to get them plenty of jobs in the future but it’s Willis that makes this movie so deep. Bruce doesn’t get the credit he deserves as an actor because he is typically playing a tough cop or broken down cop in a mindless action movie. Here is playing a tough but broken down cop living a mundane life on a New England island.
“Moonrise Kingdom” drags at times but the performances of the Gilman and Hayward, not to mention Bruce Willis, who is phenomenal in this movie, make it a lot of fun. Wes Anderson has a tendency of being a little too artsy with his movies but his style actually enhances “Moonrise Kingdom” where it has hurt him in the past.
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