A Town of its Own

MOONRISE KINGDOM

DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson

CAST: Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Kara Hayward, Jared Gilman

Rating: ****

Nobody creates mild craziness as nicely, pleasantly as Anderson. Nobody creates warm yet melancholic, set-piece homes like him as well. Here in one five-minute sweep of their house, he establishes the Bishops of Summer's End, living on a small island, as comfortably well-off and comfortably aloof from each other.

However, this is the 1960s, when it was okay for the head of a scout camp to smoke in front of his wards, for children to wield axes at camps, and for parents to not be expected to know about every living moment of their children's monitored existence. It's not surprising therefore that when Suzy, the Bishops' eldest child and a lonely 12-year-old girl, goes missing, it takes them till dinner time to realise the same. Mother Laura (McDormand) finds out only because when she calls out on a megaphone for her four children to come to the dining table, Suzy doesn't respond.

That the megaphone fits as well into the house as the record player with an LP explaining the intricacies of a symphony and a fugue is as much a credit to Anderson as McDormand, one of the most unassuming, effortless character artistes on screen. Her hair disheveled, her clothes ill-fitting, her sunglasses skewed on her nose, she is both a guilty mother and a guilty wife having an affair with the local cop.

The tempestuous Suzy with a love for books about magical things and with little love lost for her parents has a counterfoil: an orphan named Sam trained as a scout who longs for parents and who is more prone to making magic happen for him. The two met by chance at a church performance and have been secretly corresponding till the day they elope.

... contd.

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