Moonrise Kingdom

  I wasn't sure what I would view when I decided to have Netflix send me the DVD for this 2012 film.  What a surprise it was.  A fun off the wall story that was not really in reality but gave every appearance of reality.  It included a select group of very experienced actors and actresses but in ways that I found to be very different from their usual appearances.  It only justified the reality that great stars on screen can demonstrate the ability to present any image realistically.  Yet, these stars, and they included Ed Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, and Tilda Swinton were  easily identifiable but in performances not much like their usual images.  In addition Bob Balaban and Harvey Keitel had roles and I jsut couldn't identify them in their roles.

  With all of this said it is necessary to note that the two biggest stars in this film who had most of the screen time were performing their initial screen roles.  These were Jared Gilman as the hero of the film Sam, and Kara Hayward as Suzy, Sam's principal co-hort.  Neither of these youngsters  were in their teens as yet, both being in the 11 to 12 category when the film was shot.

  Moonrise Kingdom is about these two young people and their alienation with the world.  Sam was an adoptee whose birth parents had passed away.  He was the property of Social Services, that government organization who take responsibility for these kind of kids who are passed from hand to hand in foster homes.  Unfortunately for Sam he is not well liked by his current parents or for that matter his companions of the same age.

  Suzy on the other hand comes from a stable but rather unusual family.  She is the oldest of four children the remainder being boys of various younger ages.  McDormand and Murray are the parents and they apparently do not have much in the way of communication with each other.  Suzy is strongly disgusted and unappreciative of their parenting performance.

  The gist of the film is how Sam and Suzy originally met and how they decide to spend some time together and not be bothered by others adults or otherwise.  This is managed because Sam is a member of a Boy Scout orgniazation that I guess was organized for the film.  He always is seen in his scout outfit which includes hiking type shorts and other scouting clothing and badges as permantent wear.  It is while at his annual Scout get together that he decides to make his way out of the situation he's does not like.

  Sam had met Suzy the year before and discovered she was the woman/girl he loved.  She enjoyed his devotion and engages in a year long mail communication with him.  This allows them to get their plans worked out.  Suzy is a devotee of using binoculars for inspecting the landscape and is very efficient at using this device.

  The story then is set up by his sneaking out of the camp set up for the annual Scout Camp summer activity and learning experience.  Sam is packed to the gills with stuff they will need, tent, food, cooking instruments, and other necessities of life.  She observes his coming through her binoculars.  She has her own necessary items plus her cat and a large quantitee of cat food to feed this creature in hand as she heads out to join him.

  The rest of the story covers the episodes of their days together, the reactions of parents and authorities and the affects of the elements in an area that is somewhere off the coast of New England in a group of islands which I assume are imaginary.  The key thing about the environment is a hurricane is due to hit during this period.

  There is real pleasure in watching how they cope and get better acquainted with each other.    Even more interesting is the bizarre behavior of the adults depicted in the film.  Ed Norton is so un-Ed Norton in this film that it is hard to imagine this is him.  He is continually dressed in his scouting outfit and has a rather peculiar way of dealing with the scouts in his charge.  Murray and McDormand are really alarmed at the disappearance of Suzy.  Their personal relationship is difficult to define accept that they don't seem to be very good at relating to each other.  Bruce Willis as the island law enforcement official, the setting is on an island off the New England Coast, has a rather vague understanding of the law enforcement requirements.  Tilda Swinton is every one's picture of a by the book Social Services representative without much of a clue as to what needs to be doen.  She is a policies and procdures follower.

   The various episodes of how this all fits together and resulting conclusions and events is alternately  realitic and at the same time it is a fantasy.  This film like some of the other best classics is strongly ordered by it's dialogue and the deadpan way the language is used to describe and define what is  happening.

  The film is not similar to two other movies that dealt with children of this age bracket.  "A Little Romance" the film that introduced Diane Lane as a 14 year old in her first role is a sweet film with unusual events but it never has the unreal qualities of Moonrise Kingdom.  The other interesting one that involved a 12 year old was "The Professional" the remarkably brutal but interesting film starring Natalie Portman in her first role opposite French actor Jean Reno. 

  I would suspect that the film won't be liked by everyone, but it;s high rating on the IMDB rating system using votes of users of that web site indicates that the vast majority of viewers thoroughly enjoyed what they saw and heard.  

First of Favorite Performers

  I watched the last half of "The Philadelphia Story" on TCM last night.  I haven't seen any of it in  years.  This year, though I had an advantage over previous years in that I could watch it with closed captions.  This resulted in  a greater understanding of what was going on and also the really neat lines that were not always revealed in the old days.  Hearing impairment has been a part of my life since I was first diagnosed in the first grade.  Through the years it gradually got worse until back in 1985 it resulted in a greater loss and the necessity of wearing a hearing aide.  It ain't got better sense.

  I can't quote any of the lines that were new to me but will note a reference to "Easy Virtue" a remark by Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn) after her excessive intoxication and some undisclosed romantic happenings in this state with newspaper reporter role Carter played by Jimmy Stewart.  Of course in those days I was not aware that "Easy Virtue" was a very successful English play written by Noel Coward.  Just a couple of years ago it was produced in a film starring Jessica Biel, Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas.  Biel and Firth are both favorites of mine and the play in it's film version was really entertaining.

  This led to some additional soul searching and I generated mental energy considering various favorite actors/actresses and tried to decide what was the favorite role for each, that role in that particular film that I was most anxious to see again.  For Jessica Biel it meant her performance in"The Illusionist" opposite Paul Giamatti, Rupert Sewall and in the tile role as the Illusionist Ed Norton.  this was a dramatic film with many mysterious elements not only from Norton and his performance at illusions but also from the complexity of the story.

  Norton has not been one of my favorite actors being portrayed in roles primarily of the sniveling dislikable mode.  Fortunately he usually gets his comeupance at the end of such films.  Paul Giamatti on the other hand has been in a number of films with outstanding performances including of course "Sideways" among others.  Most recently I have been watching him again in the HBO series about the life of John Adams  a really outstanding historical series commencing with his defense in court of the British soldiers who were participants in the Boston Massacre prior to the Revolutionary War.  Laura Linney has the role of Abigail Adams, John's wife who apparently is a most unusually smart woman for those times or any time.

  Rupert Sewall first came to my attention in the film "Cold Comfort Farm" a film that featured Tara Fitzgerald in the lead.  Sewall appearance was very stylized in this film.  Later he starred in a detective series set In Rome  The name of the series escapes me now, but in it he was known only by his last name in the film role.

  This is just a first among the series I plan to implement in the following weeks on the Mensa Classic Films blog.  I'll consider performers form all years of media from the earliest days of sound films until those of just yesterday.  As usual comments either negative or positive are gladly accepted.  Ricky of L.A.