Review: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Wes Anderson’s work are movies that I wish I had known back in my early teenage years due to their strange nature yet surprisingly compelling storylines that would mesmerize my younger self. This case is particularly apparent in Anderson’s romance comedy, Moonrise Kingdom. Due to how the movie tackles romance and loneliness in such a way that, even now, a major part of me still relate to the things that the characters are going through.

As with most of his movies, the set design is the best in any of the movies I have seen, and it also have a signature narrator just like The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). The movie itself tackles topics that are quite deep such as loneliness and childhood, but still maintains some semblance of comedy and fun which he somehow is able to achieve.

The characters in the movie are all flawed, and this is done on purpose to evoke some sort of sense that, even though there is a main character in the movie, these other characters also have a life of their own. We can also see that, more often than not, the main character(s) in Anderson’s movies are outsiders, the odd ones out of the bunch that are struggling to find their grasp on the world. Most of them tend to hang onto the past where they might think that the world was far simpler and things were better.

But, personally, the real message of these movies is that nothing lasts forever and, most of the time, holding on to something that is not there anymore is just not worth it. Anderson’s movies feel like you are going to a theme park when you were little, all the rides seem so big and spectacular. And yet as the movie progresses, we get a chance to revisit these old theme parks when we are older, and we come to realize that these rides were not as grand as we had remembered.

The memories of the past are reminiscent of the things we once were, the person we always thought we would become, a certain person we used to love. We cling on to these things so that we will not forget the person we used to be or maybe we like to think that we are still the same person who we were back then. But as it is with the case of Moonrise Kingdom, as the storm washes the shore away, it calls to us to let go and move on.