'Moonrise Kingdom': New Wes Anderson movie is sooo Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson movies always attract star-studded casts, and his newest effort, Moonrise Kingdom, looks like it’s not going to be any exception. This tale of a pair of twelve year olds running away to live in the woods boasts names like Bill Murray and Frances McDormand as the little girl’s parents, Edward Norton as the little boy’s camp counselor, Bruce Willis as the power mad local sheriff, Tilda Swinton as some sort of old-timey nurse and Jason Schwartzman as what looks like some sort of gay priest.

But, surprisingly enough, the thing that has me most excited about this movie isn’t the adult actors at all; it’s the kids that Anderson has chosen to star. Kara Hayward and Jared Gillman play the main characters, Suzy and Sam, and they both look like they’ve turned in absolutely star-making performances. Every little glimpse we get into their weird little world makes these kids look charming and fun, and I hesitate to say it, but I think they steal the show from their adult counterparts. The troupe of child actors back at the camp seem like a good time as well.
 
Anderson always writes his films from the perspective of childhood, but other than the flashback scenes in The Royal Tenenbaums, this is really the first time that he’s worked extensively with child actors. It seems like writing for young characters, and perhaps the experience of making a cartoon in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, has inspired him to get really out there and whimsical with his approach to this story, and I for one welcome the trickling of insanity into Anderson’s world.

What’s my favorite line in the trailer? Other than the prerequisite killer moment that Murray closes things out with, it has to be Bruce Willis’s absurdly straight delivery of, “Until help arrives I’m deputizing the little one, the skinny guy and the boy with the patch on his eye to come with me in the station wagon.”