Sydney Film Festival - Film Review - Moonrise Kingdom

L to R - Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton,  Bruce Willis and Edward Norton

Wes Anderson's latest film offering, 'Moonrise Kingdom' opened the Cannes Film Festival this year and has a strong cast with Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton and Frances McDormand. Harvey Keitel also appears in a number of scenes. The storyline is set on an island in New England in the Summer of 1965 and centres on two twelve year olds, Suzy (Kara Hayward) the daughter of two lawyers, and Sam (Jared Gilman) an oprhaned Khaki Scout who fall in love and run off together into the wilderness of the island. When their disappearance is discovered they are hotly pursued by Suzy's parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), the local Sheriff (Bruce Willis), the Scout Master (Edward Norton) and the entire squad of Scout Troop 55. The film is a mixture of satire, parody, slapstick humour and sharp dialogue including somewhat introspective and unlikely statements by the teenage cast. Its a light humoured film overall but the mix of style elements, misplaced contradictory genre and bizarre situations, does not always gell and the film is more of an oddity than a completely easy-on-the mind comedy or a intuitive parody. Wes Anderson is the director, screenwriter (with Roman Coppola) and producer of the film with previous credits for The Royal Tannenbaums, Fantastic Mr Fox, and Rushmore.