The fictional children's story books Moonrise Kingdom’s Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) packs to take on her clandestine camping trip with orphan Sam Shaukusky (Jared Gilman) serve as an appealing distillation of Wes Anderson’s film: familiar yet not quite of this world, childlike yet imbued with free-floating nostalgia, and just the tiniest bit bizarre. Moonrise Kingdom is set within its own storybook world, a cloistered island off the New England coast—an island populated by typical Andersonian eccentrics, plus Bob Balaban—that reveals other little worlds inside it: the quietly chaotic Bishop home, haunted by Suzy’s gloomy, distracted parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand); Camp Ivanhoe, a Khaki Scout enclave presided over by a be-shorted Edward Norton; and the hidden cove discovered by Suzy and Sam that gives the film its name. It’s a typically lovely and quirky Anderson diorama, as satisfying from beginning to end as anything the director’s done. By focusing his story on children who act like little adults, and adults who often act like children, Anderson achieves a sort of balance that makes his signature whimsy feel more natural and emotionally charged than some of his other efforts. It’s unmistakably an Anderson film, and unmistakably one of his best. —Genevieve Koski
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