Moonrise Kingdom is one of Wes Anderson's most delightful pseudo-intellectual films, with him having helmed Rushmore, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
The puppy-love story between kleptomaniac bookworm Suzy (Kara Hayward) and orphan Khaki Scout Sam (Jared Gilman) is perfectly juvenile. Set on the fictional New England island of New Penzance, Moonrise Kingdom reimagines a more average childhood than in The Royal Tenenbaums, but Anderson's familiar stylized cinematography and elaborate production design are in full bloom here. Bob Balaban (Howl, Capote, Midnight Cowboy) is the omnipresent narrator who predicts a devastating storm and a high tide that will flood the island.
Anderson chooses to put his actors in absurd situations rather than somewhat realistic situations that are stranger than fiction, thus making Moonrise Kingdom part PG children's film and part uncouth adult live action/adventure comedy. It is the perfect summer movie and it's a refreshing departure from the seasonal blockbuster fare, despite the good start this year with The Avengers.
Suzy's morose and incompetent parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop—played by Frances McDormand (Fargo) and Bill Murray (Lost in Translation)—go looking for the two pre-adolescent lovebirds who ran away together along the Harvest Migration Trail to Chickchaw. Soon Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), Social Services (Tilda Swinton), militaristic Khaki Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) and the entire island of New Penzance are searching the island for him. Harvey Keitel (Thelma & Louise, Taxi Driver) plays Commander Pierce, who's in charge of the larger scout camp where the great Jason Schwarzman (Rushmore, I Heart Huckabees) unofficially marries the couple in exchange for a golf ball can of nickels.
It's funny to see children imitate their adult counterparts. Suzy is the precocious eldest child who asserts her independence before she's hit the ripe age. She talks back to her parents and buries herself in many beautiful hand-drawn fantasy fiction books such as The Girl From Jupiter by Gertrude Pierce. Sam is an unwanted obsessive-compulsive orphan child whose foster parents, the Billingsley's, won't take him back after he goes missing. Suzy and Sam meet backstage at a school play and quickly become pen pals. That's how they plan their escape from their droll living situations. Suzy likes to steal her books from the library and read them aloud to Sam as he dozes off smoking a pipe. They're like a charming senior couple that has settled into a routine.
Murray memorably struts around the house shirtless, wielding an axe and a liqueur bottle. McDormand is the world's most apathetic mom. She communicates with her kids by shouting through a bullhorn across the multilevel New England home. My favorite scenes are on the rocky shore of Chickchaw, where Suzy and Sam set up camp and listen to a record by an obscure French singer. The looks on their faces when Murray catches the couple half-clothed in bed together is one of those mutually embarrassing moments when parents discover their children are no longer innocent yet not quite pubescent. On the eve of the Hullabaloo scouting event, the scout troop—without their Scout Master—decide to stage a jailbreak to reunite the young lovers.
Like Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, Moonrise Kingdom is an operetta in its own right. The dialogue is painstakingly rhythmic, and the orchestral score by Alexandre Desplat keeps carries the story effortlessly. Although I don't remember anything but the trumpet waking me up at Boy Scout camp, I enjoyed the energizing marching music performed by Mark Mothersbaugh, Peter Jarvis and his drum corps. Moonrise Kingdom opened this year's Cannes Film Festival May 16 to great reviews and strong audience response. It opens on Friday, June 1, courtesy of Focus Features and India Brush Entertainment.
High School
Horror/Thriller film distributor Anchor Bay is growing ever larger with the recent Coriolanus and Madonna's W.E. The latest from this label is High School, the first feature by director John Stalberg, who also co-wrote the script with Eric Linthorst and Stephen Susco.
This low-brow comedy stars Adrien Brody (Darjeeling Limited; The Pianist) as pot dealer Psycho Ed; Michael Chiklis (TV's The Shield) as Principal Gordon; and Colin Hanks—who recently had a cameo on TV's Happy Endings, set in Chicago. High School is good for some cock jokes, locker-room nudity and stoner-specific references, but what takes it over the top is Psycho Ed's talking-frog and the animated "shroom" hallucinations.
The main characters are played by two relatively unknown actors, Matt Bush and Sean Marquette. Bush was in the frat comedy Glory Daze as well as Adventureland. In High School, he plays Henry Burke, an MIT-bound, goody two-shoes high school senior who might have screwed up his scholarship and valedictorian status by taking an innocent toke of pharmaceutical-grade marijuana from his childhood friend, Breaux (Marquette), a Jonah Hill type. The friends share a misplaced sentimental moment when Breaux reminds Henry that they first bonded over having divorced parents.
What otherwise would have been innocent experimentation is exacerbated after an Asian-American spelling-bee student gets high before her turn at regional competition. Actress Julia Ling, as Charylne, has a hilarious moment on screen at the start of the film where she compares the word in question to diarrhea. "It's also a spray, but it comes out of a different orifice." The poor recreational user gets arrested for drug possession, spurring the racist high school principal (Chiklis) to conduct a school-wide drug screening.
For such a smart kid, Matt Bush agrees a little too easily to Breaux's half-baked, stoner fantasy plan to get the whole school "roasted" so everyone will fail the drug test so the results will be thrown out. That amounts to something like drug dealers getting all law enforcement officers high so they won't get arrested. Somehow, Henry thinks that Breaux's plan is better than no plan. The pair anger the big-time drug dealer in the city, Psycho Ed, by stealing his stash of potent pot crystals that will get the whole school progressively higher and higher.
Let it be noted that the theater for the preview screening was half-empty despite the draw of Adrien Brody and pot-smoking hijinks. At some point—a quarter of the way through the film—I felt like the filmmakers were trying to make a movie exclusively for stoners because the film tries to make its audience feel as high as the high school students and administrators who tasted the tainted brownies. It opens Friday, June 1, with a limited release.
Film notes:
—Donna Deitch, director of Desert Hearts, is co-chairing a screening and VIP reception of Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, starring Jane Fonda, in New York City June 4 in association with Women's Media Center. The film is being distributed by IFC and will have a limited release starting June 9.
—Snow White and the Huntsman will open nationwide Friday, June 1. Charlize Theron (Monster) stars as the evil queen, and it co-stars Chris Hemsworth (Thor; The Avengers) and Kristen Stewart (the Twilight series). It is a Universal Pictures release.
