Flick of The Day: Moonrise Kingdom

There are few mainstream film-makers that are as “ Marmite” as Wes Anderson. For those who love his work, I included, his films are a blend of fine storytelling, quirky wry humour and a distinctive visual style. For those who don’t, the visual style and humour are undone by their off kilter sensibility. This view is often summed up by an exasperated “Oh that film is so annoying”.  His best and probably best loved film is The Royal Tenenbaums while Rushmore, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou have all found a willing audience. This latter film remains my personal favourite, a beautiful and deeply funny look at the life of renowned oceanographer Zissou played by the incomparable Bill Murray.   It would be fair then to say that I was looking forward to Anderson’s latest film, Moonrise Kingdom. 

Opening with a typically melancholic credit sequence, we are introduced to the inhabitants of the island of New Penzance, an idyllic New England community in 1965. These include the Bishop family led by Walt and Laura, a pair of duelling attorneys played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand and their “troubled” teenage daughter Suzy, an excellent Kara Hayward. There is also the Island’s policeman Captain Sharp, played by Bruce Willis in fine form and a troop of scouts at Camp Ivanhoe led by Scout Master Ward, a hilariously earnest Edward Norton.

One fine morning, the Scout Master awakes to find that one of his charges has flown the coup in the night, in a funny scene reminiscent of The Shawshank Redemption. We soon learn that the missing boy is a 12 year old orphan named Sam Shakusky who has disappeared off into the hinterland of the island. He has however not gone alone and is joined as a runaway by his lady love Kara Bishop, much to the chagrin of her father Walt. The pair have been pen pals since meeting the previous Summer at a church performance of Noye’s Fludde and have resolved to run away together to escape their uneasy family life. Sam has absconded with enough camping equipment to enable a nomadic existence while Kara has brought a stack of her favourite books and borrowed her brother’s record player. Together they set off for a secluded cove which they name Moonrise Kingdom.

Of course, they are soon captured by the good hearted Captain Sharp and the deputised scouts. Walt vows that the two shall never see each other again and social services in the form of Tilda Swinton are soon on their way to take young Sam into care. However fate in the form of an epic storm intervenes. Will the island survive its onslaught? Will Scout Master Ward lead his troop to safety? Will Sam and Kara be reunited or will he be dragged off to be a ward of the state? Time will tell.

Anderson has assembled another fine ensemble cast for this film. Each actor brings an undoubted love for the script and their character to the table. Bruce Willis gives his most nuanced performance in years and that’s a sentence I did not expect to write. Bill Murray plays what now seems to be a recurring performance as a cuckolded husband in Wes Anderson films, that together with Frances McDormand forms a loving if emotionally distant parent group. The real stars are the two young protagonists Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman who bring a self-assured maturity to their roles.

The real joy of the film is how Anderson, together with co-writer Roman Coppola has managed to capture the feel of a childhood summer which feels endless at the time and yet so quickly is overcome by a return to normalcy at Summer’s end.  The attention to detail and the quirky eccentric nature of his work are spellbinding in my opinion.

It is Anderson’s most complete film and I think possibly his best live-action film to date. It, like so many of his previous films, manages to transport the viewer to a time and place that they really would like to visit in real life. This is the magic of cinema.

Flick of The Day: Michael Clayton

Today's film is an old-school thriller of the highest order, Michael Clayton. It is often noted that for all his prowess as a movie star and his undoubted charm as an actor, very few of his films though critically lauded make any money, most barely breaking even. It is a shame then that some of his best work such as O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Good Night and Good Luck and Michael Clayton has been the least successful. For all these films deserve to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.

Michael Clayton (Widescreen Edition)

George Clooney is excellent as the titular lawyer and firm fixer with a gambling problem and a failed restaurant who spends his days and nights fixing all the little problems that would otherwise the firm and its clients. He is called in to help when one of the firm's leading litigators has a nervous breakdown in a deposition in relation to a case involving a killer pesticide. Tom Wilkinson is brilliantly manic as the depressive pushed over the edge by the thought that he has spent years defending this carcinogen. Tilda Swinton also shines as an in house legal counsel for the chemical firm, desperate for the case to be resolved in their favour and willing to go to any lengths to ensure this. It quickly becomes apparent that Wilkinson has evidence that the firm knowingly let this chemical loose and the films becomes a chase, with plot building on plot as Swinton's character seeks to ensure that the evidence never sees the lights of day.

The film feels like a paranoia thriller from the late '70s with its grandstanding performances, dialogue heavy scenes and plotting building up to a grand finale that is a thrilling and satisfying end to what has come before. Wilkinson is extraordinary as Arthur Edens, recalling the performance of Peter Finch in Network, and indeed like that fine performance he gets most of the best lines and monologues.

"Michael, I have great affection for you and you live a very rich and interesting life, but you're a bag man not an attorney. If your intention was to have me committed you should have kept me in Wisconsin where the arrest report, the videotape, eyewitness reports of my inappropriate behaviour would have had jurisdictional relevance. I have no criminal record in the state of New York, and the single determining criterion for involuntary commitment is danger. Is the defendant a danger to himself or to others. You think you got the horses for that? Well good luck and God bless, but I'll tell you this: the last place you want to see me is in court."

Praise must also go to the late, great, Sydney Pollack, always underrated as an actor, who gives a strong performance as the head of the firm, giving the film an added gravitas in the few scenes he shares with Clooney.

Tony Gilroy shows himself to be a fine director with this debut, never underestimating the audiences intelligence and ability to follow what is going on around them. His direction shows a lightness of touch, particularly in relation to the shocking murder that is at the centre of the film. Nothing is layered too heavily or signalled too strongly, he trusts the audience to know that this is wrong and all the more shocking for the matter of fact way in which it is portrayed on screen.

In summary, this is a great film with some fine performances and a great script from Tony Gilroy. Tilda Swinton was well worth her Bafta win as a woman who quickly gets in over her head and who's ruthlessness leads to her downfall. Clooney, Wilkinson and Pollack, all deserve praise. In the end, what is most enjoyable is that the bad guys get their due, and what is more old school then that?