Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

MOONRISE KINGDOM  (2012)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Wes Anderson
    Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray,
    Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton,
    Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban, Harvey Keitel
On an island off the New England coast, two kids, a boy and a girl, run away together. A local cop, the girl's parents and the boy's scout troop all go out looking for them. I'm not sure why this movie works, but it does. It's transparently artificial and way too cute. The kids are precocious. The grownups are clueless. The kids act more like adults than the adults do, in situations where you're just not used to seeing pre-teen kids, and maybe don't want to. Some viewers will find this precious, or creepy, or both. Others will find themselves laughing out loud at the good-natured absurdity of it all. It's a kids' fantasy, really, a romantic adventure that plays out not the way it would happen, but the way a kid might imagine it. The script's a collection of cliches and non sequiturs, all delivered deadpan straight. It's about family, of course. All of Wes Anderson's movies are. But what made him think he could get away with this, and how he managed to pull it off, I still don't know the answer to that one.