I love movie theaters

Moonrise Kingdom

Words cannot describe how much I liked the movie. The same apparently applied to Roger Ebert, who managed to write a review with literally not a single word about whether he liked the movie or not. I had low expectations for the movie. I liked “The Royal Tenenbaums”, loved “The Darjeeling Limited” and was rather disappointed by “Fantastic Mr. Fox”. How likely was it that this movie would be like one of the Anderson films I like? Low, taking into account that the only review I previously read was from The Fox is Black.

Now I know much better, because my tastes and Bobby Solomon’s are as different as night and day (no, “Drive” is not an amazing movie, it’s vapid and almost boring). Unsurprisingly, while he was disappointed, I absolutely loved “Moonrise Kingdom”. Sure, this is a very typical Wes Anderson film, spotting (from what I could count) 18 out of these 24 Wes Anderson clichés. But for some reason, “Moonrise Kingdom” does everything so much better: Its characters are actually smart and full of real feelings, there is actual character development (perhaps not as ground-breaking as in “The Darjeeling Limited” but still there), and last but not least, it had so many characters I loved. I was fond of the main characters, much more explicitly social outcast than in most of his movies, and I especially liked Frances McDormand’s and Edward Norton’s character. The latter (and Bruce Willis’ policeman role) are probably the only Wes Anderson character ever who are truly likable and care for other children as if it were their own. The whole movie was just such heartwarming distraction from the previous movie we watched. I remember that I liked “The Darjeeling Limited” because it made me feel like there was some meaning to life, and I like “Moonrise Kingdom” because it makes me feel like life is worth living.

More than any other Wes Anderson movie, almost everybody in this film was likable and ultimately ended up supporting our main couple. In that respect, it reminded me a lot of “Golden Slumber”, another one of those few lovely films in which the main character is struggling for something, we all love and root for him, and he gets lots of help from his friends in various situations. Most of the film’s suspense comes from there, but it is the happy kind of suspense which probably is one of the reasons why I watch movies in the first place.

One of the websites I subscribe to, Design*Sponge, features this lovely “Living In” series in which they present things in the spirit of some movie. (They did one on Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Darjeeling Limited) “Moonrise Kingdom” would be absolutely perfect for that. It has some of the greatest details – I loved the high safe house, the manual toilet they built, Suzy’s outfits and the boy scout uniforms, Scout Master Ward’s pocket knife, the interior design of Suzy’s house, her choice of books and the look of the record player… just everything. I want to live in this movie, damnit.

I also liked how the film portrayed the relationship between Suzy’s parents and the police officer – and how it inflicted wounds upon the children. As little children we are always afraid that our parents would commit infidelity and crumble our hopes for true and happy love, but assuming that Suzy decided to back to living with her parents after all is proof that she was able to develop some sort of understanding for her (miserable) mother whom she previously hated.

On a side note, these days I think that Suzy is a cute name. When I was a little child, there was this girl named Suzy in my elementary school class who cried when we got our first grades because she was not able to surpass me, and I hated her for being so ridiculous and cowardly. (Please admit your defeat without making a scene. What incredible sense of entitlement is that?) It also didn’t help that her mother was a teacher at the school and all the other teachers came to console her. Sadly I do not know what became of her, but curiosity is killing me. But hey, that was in elementary school, so now I got over it and admit that I liked her very cute name.

If you dislike this movie, you were either a football star or overly popular in your high school, or you decided to completely discard your childhood, or you are just entirely lame. In any event, I hope you’ll see it. Perhaps even in theaters, because this was quite a visual feat.