Wes Anderson's
Moonrise Kingdom is easily one of the best films I've seen this year: funny, poignant, inventive. I still prefer Anderson's
The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore and
Fantastic Mr. Fox, but the new one's right up there. I love the devotion that Edward Norton's character has for the Khaki Scouts (i.e., the Boy Scouts), and, in fact, as an old Eagle Scout myself, I found pretty much everything about the Khaki Scouts to be funny. I also love the way a certain character (I won't say which one) gradually emerges as the movie's true hero. I think
Kingdom was influenced by Anderson's work on the animated
Mr. Fox in that the characters in the new film are a lot like animated characters or puppets. The actors' performances are deliberately simple. Bill Murray, for example, is perfectly fine in his role, but his character doesn't have the complexity or personal style of a typical Bill Murray character. The role would have been exactly the same had, say, Jeff Bridges or Jeff Daniels played it. Which, again, is deliberate and just what this material requires. My guess is that Anderson may eventually return to animation.
