Something to watch tonight: Friday 18 October

Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012)

Some of you have already been bore silly by my tales of vis­it­ing the USA in 2012 for the Telluride Film Festival and a trip to NYC but I’m going back to the well once more.

Because I am a fool to myself and a danger to oth­ers, I decided that my lay­over in Los Angeles would be enough time to go and watch a film – I needed to to see Moonrise Kingdom to meet my dead­line for Capital Times and the Cinematica podcast.

I get through immig­ra­tion and head to the taxi rank and take a ride to the Arclight in El Segundo (no longer oper­at­ing since Covid appar­ently). There I enjoyed the movie, call and wait patiently for a taxi, and then get back to LAX, only to dis­cov­er that I had put 7.20pm in my cal­en­dar for the next check-in, not 1720.

Panic ensues and I run through the ter­min­al like one of those rom-com her­oes, just mak­ing it to my flight. You can read more of the enter­tain­ing details of that leg of the trip here (includ­ing my real­isa­tion that the motel I’d booked in Denver was next door to the pen­it­en­tiary and there were signs every­where advising not to pick up hitch-hikers!).

But the film itself was great and even on that sunny after­noon the audi­ence whooped and hollered – US cinema audi­ences make a lot more noise than kiwis – and applauded at the end:

The story is also pure Anderson – out­siders find­ing their own path in the face of the dis­ap­prov­al or simple incom­pre­hen­sion of oth­ers. Our old-before-his-time hero for this film is Eagle Scout Sam Shukowsky (Jared Gilman): orphan and out­cast, water­col­our­ist and pipe smoker.

The time is 1965 and the place is an island off the coast of New England. Shukowsky has fallen in love beau­ti­ful young mal­con­tent, Suzy (Kara Hayward) whose par­ents just don’t under­stand. They make a pact to meet in the middle of the island to start an ideal­ist­ic – and, frankly impossible to main­tain – new life.

The two dis­ap­pear­ances spark a “scout-and-girl” hunt led by the island’s only police (Willis) and the naïve but ded­ic­ated scout mas­ter Norton. This is twee Anderson, witty, warm and endear­ing (if you are me) or glib and annoy­ing (if you are one of the people who didn’t like, say, The Royal Tenenbaums). Despite it’s daffi­ness there’s a real warmth to the kids’ rela­tion­ship and the sup­port­ing cast are either reli­ably aligned to type (Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton) or sat­is­fy­ingly against (Willis).

Also, in that review: The Expendables 2 which I didn’t hate. (“Be pre­pared for a third edi­tion which I think should be called The Expendables 3: Botox Squad.”)

Where to watch Moonrise Kingdom

Aotearoa: Streaming on Netflix

Australia: Streaming on Netflix, Binge or Paramount+

Canada: Streaming on Prime Video

Ireland and UK: Streaming on Netflix

USA: Digital rental