Blogfromthebarn

Movie Review - Moonrise kingdom, is a strangely wonderful tale, extraordinarily well told

In 2009 I was blown away by the surreal, stop-motion treatment of the Fantastic Mr Fox (despite the predations of the real thing on my sad little flock) delivered by Wes Anderson. Three years on and Mrs Stuffy (who'd caught a trailer for this movie, Moonrise Kingdom) was keen to see it

As regular readers will know Mrs Stuffy's word is law so hey-ho to the multiplex. I'd seen no reviews and apart from passing familiarity with the aforementioned foxy-tale had no preconceptions. I was immediately struck by the similarity of technique the director employed in the opening sequences but this time with actors rather than animated farmyard folk. The opening scenes, the seamless editing and the intelligent use of music introduced us to the family at the heart of this tale and set a number of clues for what was to come, it's a gentle tale, a fine collection of slightly damaged, eccentric, dysfunctional folk, played by a really strong cast and directed by a writer/director with a very individual way of seeing, and portraying, his world.

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It's very hard to describe the story, the beauty of this film is in the very oddness, the quaintness, the gentle (mostly) handling of personalities, relationships and the way characters react to each other and the bizarre situations which curiously seems both very odd but absolutely right at the same time. The young leads, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward are delightful, the adult characters without exception consistently and coherently weird and the location in Newport, Rhode Island, looks idyllic.


If you'd enjoy an evening of great unusualityness I'd strongly recommend this film, I'm tempted to watch it a second time as I know I missed lots of subtle goodness going on.


Mrs Stuffy, was alert, pillow-less, mostly coherent and mildly amused throughout... which was nice.


An eccentric haiku


Old hands and young love
deliver likeable Lord
of the (butter)Flies*





*did you see what I did there ? No, go see the film then ...

Labels: Bill Murray, Brice Willis, Films haiku Stuffy critic, Francois Mcdormand, Harvey Keitel, Moonrise Kingdom, Mrs Stuffy, oakwood stuffy, Tilda Swinton, Wes Anderson

posted by Stuffy @ 1:39 pm