Oh my goodness, I just love Wes Anderson, and this is an excellent installation into his body of work. If you do not like him, you should probably skip this one. It has that halting matter-of-fact style that I fell in love with while watching 'The Royal Tanenbaums', and have been enjoying ever since.
Here is how it goes. It is basically a Peter Pan story with some sharp differences. No magic. Peter is not so much the leader as the smartest, and Wendy doesn't have the motherly impulses you would imagine.
Sam (Jared Gilman) is an orphan, solemn behind oversized eyeglasses, an expert in scouting. His current family is ‘unable to invite him back’, or words to that effect. He is an odd duck, a boy who marches to a different drummer and is completely unabashed about doing so. He is even proud to be out of step with his peers. The love of his young life is Suzy (Kara Hayward). She is bookish, a dreamer. The two have planned to run away together. No mind that they are on an island, and there appears to be nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. When they have their long-planned secret rendezvous in a meadow on the island, Sam arrives laden down with all the camping and survival gear they will possibly need, while Suzy has provided for herself some books to read, her kitten and a portable 45 rpm record player with extra batteries.
In the background there is the ever dutiful Scout Master
(Edward Norton), who is at once a caricature of the prototypical by-the-book
scout master and someone who cares about Sam.
He is troubled by Sam’s unknown whereabouts, but he is equally troubled
that when he is found he will be turned over to an orphanage by the officious
Social Services (Tilda Swinson almost minces as she walks, she is so perfect
for the role). Suzy’s parents (Bill
Murray and Frances McDormand) are sadly out of step with their daughter—and
with the rest of the world—although none of them are the least bit ordinary
(this is a Wes Anderson film, after all).
The movie looks like it was shot through an Instagram
lens. The colors are at once soft and
vibrant. The setting for the film is
fictitious, but is a lovely island New England for all intensive purposes—uninhabited,
with gorgeous secluded spots and a sense that winter would not go well. The story unfolds in an entirely predictable
way (except for an unexpected goring) but that doesn’t detract from the
pleasure of watching it happen.
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