I liked this film so much I\u2019ve already seen it twice. Moonrise Kingdom <\/em>is so good, in fact, I almost couldn\u2019t bring myself to write about it for fear of not doing it justice.<\/p>\n And yet, since I first took my 11-year-old nephew, Ethan, to see it last month, I\u2019ve been talking about Moonrise Kingdom <\/em><\/a>nonstop, encouraging everyone I know to go see it. It has captured my imagination completely, an absolute tour de force \u2014 wholly original and an \u201cinstant classic,\u201d as I heard one film critic utter tell a companion on his way out of the theater.<\/p>\n Perhaps Ethan, a mythology buff who\u2019s never met a fantasy film he didn\u2019t like, put it most eloquently when he said (surprising no one more than himself), \u201cThat was the best film I\u2019ve ever<\/em> seen.\u201d<\/p>\n Moonrise Kingdom <\/em>is director Wes Anderson<\/a>\u2018s seventh feature-length film to date. In an iconoclastic cinematic oeuvre unrivaled among filmmakers of his generation, Anderson\u2019s latest stands above the rest of his stellar films \u2014 Bottle Rocket,<\/em> Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums<\/a>, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou<\/a>, Fantastic Mr. Fox<\/a> and Darjeeling Limited<\/a> \u2014 <\/em>as an eloquent, funny, enduringly poignant homage to childhood and, moreover, to innocence.<\/p>\n In a word, the film is perfect. I wouldn\u2019t change a thing.<\/p>\n Set on the fictitious New England island of New Penzance during the summer of 1965, Moonrise Kingdom<\/em> tells the love story of 12-year-olds Sam Shakusky (the achingly captivating Jared Gilman) and Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward). Suzy lives on the island with her unhappily married attorney parents, Walt (Bill Murray) and Laura (Frances McDormand), and three younger brothers in fantastically rambling house called Summer\u2019s End. Sam is on the island attending Camp Ivanhoe, a \u201cKhaki Scout\u201d summer camp, in preparation for a scouting jamboree on a neighboring island.<\/p>\n Sam and Suzy are natural-born outliers \u2014 an orphan with a flair for the eccentric and a \u201ctroubled teen\u201d with anger issues, respectively. A chance encounter (if you believe in such things) the summer before at a performance of Noye\u2019s Fludde <\/em><\/a>(composer Benjamin Britten\u2019s operatic retelling of the biblical Noah\u2019s Ark story) at the Church of St. Jack, in which Suzy played a raven, irrevocably links the kids\u2019 hearts and stories. They become secret pen pals and devise an elaborate plan to run away together.<\/p>\n The film opens at Camp Ivanhoe the morning Scout Master Ward (the wonderful Edward Norton) discovers that Sam is missing. An accomplished scout with impressive survival skills, Sam is deeply disliked by his fellow scouts who believe him to be an emotionally unstable weirdo who may or may not be dangerous. Ward dispatches a handful of his scouts \u2014 the nerdiest search party imaginable \u2014 to track Sam and return him safely to Ivanhoe.<\/p>\n Enter the town policeman, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), who along with Ward contact Social Services (a character whose name we never learn as she\u2019s known only by her professional designation \u201cSocial Services,\u201d played by the inimitable Tilda Swinton) about Sam\u2019s disappearance. It\u2019s at this point that we all (the audience and the other characters) learn that Sam is an orphan whose foster family doesn\u2019t want him back. The boy is completely alone in the world. Except that he isn\u2019t \u2026<\/p>\n Suzy packs provisions \u2014 six of her favorite fantasy novels, her kitten (secreted in a fishing creel), a pallet of cat food, her brother\u2019s portable record player, and her ever-present binoculars \u2014 and sneaks off to rendezvous with Sam in a field. Together they set out to make their escape, orienteering they way across the island to set up camp in a remote cove.<\/p>\n During their brief stay alone in the cove, Sam and Suzy explore their new found freedom and their burgeoning relationship.<\/p>\n It was at this point in the film that I found myself unexpectedly holding my breath. Sam and Suzy are dancing on the beach in their underwear \u2014 he in a white undershirt and baggy jockey shorts, she in a white training bra and enormous white granny panties. (Remember, the film in set in 1965, long before boxer briefs and \u201ccheekies\u201d panties were the sartorial norm for the junior-high set.) They share a chaste first kiss and then, after a short discussion about the mechanics thereof, an awkward French kiss. Suzy tells to the nervous, bespectacled Sam (who resembles a young Sean Lennon) that he can touch her chest if he so wishes. He places his hands over her training bra and she says, \u201cI think they\u2019ll grow.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh no!<\/em> I thought. No no no no. <\/em>Panic set in as I imagined where this scene might be going. I wasn\u2019t alone in my fear, if the palpable tension among the other moviegoers in the theater was any indication. I believe we expected to see (cringingly) the young characters overtly sexualized, to take their physical exploration to a more adult level in order to shock, and perhaps titillate, us.<\/p>\n But they don\u2019t. Their innocence is preserved. And that bespeaks Anderson\u2019s genius.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The director allows the young actors to be children. Innocents. It\u2019s completely believable, refreshingly so. Earlier in the same scene, Sam warns Suzy that he might wet the bed in the night, telling her that he wouldn\u2019t want her to be offended. She tenderly says she wouldn\u2019t be offended. It\u2019s such an incredibly sweet, true and kind exchange \u2014 so wholeheartedly innocent \u2014 it brought a tear to my eye. They are children standing in the threshold of adolescence, inhabiting that liminal space full of anxiety and expectation. But in that moment, and many others in the film, they still very much are children.<\/p>\n The scene that follows, in which Suzy\u2019s family, the scout master and Captain Sharp discover them asleep in their pup tent the next morning, mirrors the audience\u2019s relief (and surprise). Enraged, Walt (Suzy\u2019s father) lunges at the tent, tears it from the ground and holds it above his head, glowering at the startled, sleepy kids inside. He\u2019s expecting to see something that he doesn\u2019t. He tosses the tent aside and walks away, while his wife grabs Suzy by the arm and pulls her away from Sam toward an awaiting boat.<\/p>\n As I think about my reaction to the kissing scene, I am reminded of a conversation I had a few years ago with Danny Boyle, the Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire<\/em>, when his film Millions<\/em><\/a> was released. That film, which quickly became one of my favorites, stars two boys making their first appearances on film. Boyle talked at length about the awesome responsibility directing children is (or at least should be) for a director.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t want to over-coach them. You want to protect them. You want to allow them to be innocent, especially in scenes that have even a whiff of sexuality to them.<\/p>\n Boyle pulls it off beautifully in Millions<\/em> and Anderson does so masterfully in Moonrise Kingdom, <\/em>which is both Gilman and Hayward\u2019s first film. Anderson conveys a brilliant commentary on society, cultural mores and our perception of children more articulately in what doesn\u2019t happen in that scene on the beach than what does.<\/p>\n Anderson would not have been able to accomplish this rare feat of filmmaking had he not treated the young characters with so much respect. He takes Sam and Suzy seriously, never dismissing their feelings of estrangement from the rest of the world, nor minimizing their love for each other.<\/p>\n Later, in a scene aboard Captain Sharp\u2019s houseboat over a wieners-and-beer Last Supper of sorts, Sam talks about his connection to Suzy. When they met at the church play, something happened. They didn\u2019t mean for it to happen, but it did. A spark. An instant connection. Love at first sight. Soul recognizing soul.<\/p>\n Has he ever loved anyone like that, Sam asks Captain Sharp.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d the melancholy cop answers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened?\u201d Sam says.<\/p>\n She loved someone else, the older outlier replies.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d Sam says.<\/p>\n