On Moonrise Kingdom

Immediately recognisable as a Wes Anderson film, Moonrise Kingdom continues the director’s run of seven feature films and not one of them less than good. Despite the similarity of themes in Anderson’s films (dysfunctional families, the loss of childhood) of which Moonrise Kingdom adheres to, it never feels like old ground being reworked. The ensemble cast, theatre like set design and camera tracking movement are proverbial Anderson idiosyncrasies and bring with them a sense of warmth that all over his films have. This is not to say that Moonrise Kingdom is maudlin. Like all of Anderson’s work (especially The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)), the film has an edge amongst the sentimentality. Dark, touching and funny, Moonrise Kingdom cements Anderson’s place as one of the most talented directors working in American cinema.