95% Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson is back. He is once again collecting many of his usual suspects, most prominently Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, but also welcomes huge names new to his ensemble: It's a pleasure to see Ed Norton, Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel on the same screen. Here, they are all in minor roles while the focus is on two teenage runaways, a boy scout and a depressed girl. The two adorable newcomers are not far behind the big names' performances. The hunt for the kids all across a tiny New England island shows all the trademarks director Anderson is loved for: perfectly arranged frames, doll house camera angles, theater plays with much love for detail, interactive maps, read-out letters and of course plenty of quirky characters. Like in his former films, the adults all have issues, but Anderson keeps a certain innocence and nostalgia for his younger characters amidst all the chaos, almost making this an Astrid Lindgren adventure (just including dead dogs, sea storms and Noah's ark). It may not be Anderson's funniest film, some of his tricks have been used to often by now to be entirely surprising. But it most certainly is his sweetest and most positive movie to date. Fans will once again be pleased, people who never got the hype still won't.

May 23, 2012

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