Review of Moonrise Kingdom (2012) by Erik R — 12 Jan 2014

Moonrise Kingdom was so great, so awesome; I don't even know where to start.

Romeo and Juliet! There's where I'll start. The story of Romeo and Juliet is stupid and some scholars believe Shakespeare was trolling people when he wrote it (seriously, this is a genuine academic belief). Two super-rich teenagers meet and FALL INSTANTLY IN LOVE and then die for each other within the space of, like, three days. Except they needn't have died, really. There was just a mix-up with some poison and a dagger. There's no awkward courtship, no fumbling sexual exploration, no anything.

Moonrise Kingdom isn't like that. Suzy & Sam, the young lovers are SO awkward, and yet so earnest, and their young love is portrayed perfect, absolutely perfect. All the little touches, the little details, like Suzy's luggage full of YA books, her believing her binoculars is her "power" and Sam laughing at her discovery of her parent's book about the trouble child. Even outside of their relationship, every character, every scene is great. My favorite is the ridiculous leap that Scout Master Ward (played by Edward Norton) makes in order to save Scout Commander Pierce. I laughed out loud.

I won't pretend that Hollywood hasn't always been full of bullshit. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't, I don't know. But these days I honestly have a lot more trouble stomaching it. Prometheus? Yeah that was so contrived. Even a film like Avengers, which I enjoyed, was full of bullshit, like the fact that when your heroes are shown to be next to indestructible (Thor, Hulk, even Iron Man), then all sense of danger is lost.

Despite some truly absurd occurrences in Moonrise Kingdom, it did not suffer from the bullshit syndrome. It felt so genuine and authentic. I think that's very rare, for a film to have its own style, its own voice.

Final Say: Possibly my top 2012 film.

How to Watch It: Watch with a cute & intelligent boy / girl. Which is kind of a pointless thing to say because last I checked, every film is superior next to a cute & intelligent boy / girl. *shrug*.