MOONRISE KINGDOM (2012)

MOONRISE KINGDOM (2012) Director: Wes Anderson

Anyone who’s seen one of Wes Anderson’s films is prepared for the stylistic and aesthetic idiosyncrasies of this director. Just as you can tell a Robert Altman or David Lynch film without too much effort, Anderson offers his films a visual signature that’s fairly unmistakable. If you haven’t seen a Wes Anderson film, I’d be forced to describe Moonrise Kingdom as Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts as adapted by Stanley Kubrick. And if I have to describe Stanley Kubrick to you, well… you’re on your own.

I think that Anderson shares qualities with all three of those great American film mavericks, but particularly shares traits with Kubrick; the meticulously arranged shots, the ironic and godlike detachment, and the intricate attention to detail join hands and create a film experience that ups the stakes on all of Anderson’s pet notions. More than any of his previous work, this feels like the film that he has been working up to and, because of that, it may prove to be his first true masterpiece.

Unlike his previous films, which are set in the present, but filled with objects and fashions from the recent past, Moonrise Kingdom takes place in the year 1965, a time shortly before the director was born. In a time where a scout master could still smoke in front of children and children still had library cards, Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) meet one another at a church performance and strike up a swift and intense junior league romance. Both feeling ostracized from society, Sam as an orphan overseen by Social Services (personified by Tilda Swinton, enacting Mary Poppins’ evil twin) and Suzy as the “troubled child” of disengaged lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), they plot to run away. Everyone seems to be running away from something, whether it’s Scout Master Ward (Ed Norton) who claims he’s a “Khaki Scout” first and a math teacher in his spare time, or Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis, in fine form) who is the policeman of the storybook-like New Penzance Island and is engaged in a sort-of affair with Suzy’s mother. Like the comic strip I mentioned above, Sam and Suzy enjoy an adult-like perspective straight out of the misadventures of Charlie Brown (tellingly, the scout troop’s dog is named Snoopy). Unlike Peanuts, the adults in the film are present and seem to be just as bewildered by the world in which they’ve found themselves. Like many of Anderson’s films, nobody really has a sense of humor about themselves and everyone is busy in the work of losing their innocence or pining for it.

Moonrise Kingdom is a funny, sweet, quirky film, Anderson’s best and most coherent vision since The Royal Tenenbaums, and a film that I am already looking forward to watching again.

COMPLIANCE (2012)

COMPLIANCE (2012) Director: Craig Zobel

It takes quite a bit to court controversy these days. We’re a bit numb. A relatively sophisticated person might approach this film with a great deal of skepticism, in spite of the giant “Inspired by True Events” that blares in a screen-filling font before the title. A number of people walked out of screenings, feeling that they were watching some sort of exploitation film or, at the very least, someone’s sick fantasy. I don’t think that’s what director Zobel was attempting to do; I think there are some deep questions that need to be asked about this film.

If you haven’t seen it yet, as it’s still in wide release, I’m not really ruining the film by telling you the following: Compliance tells the story of a prank phone call to a fast food restaurant that leads to a series of troubling events. The only person with any authority for the first hour and a quarter is restaurant manager Sandra (a great performance by Ann Dowd), who is taken in by the prank caller (Pat Healy, who joins the likes of Bill McKinney, Ted Levine, and Peter Lorre in the pantheon of creepy movie character portrayers), accepting that he is a police officer, even as he accuses employee Becky (Dreama Walker) of stealing from a customer’s purse and subjecting her to a number of humiliating searches.

While there are aspects of this that strain credulity, the real question is this: Why did Sandra give up her authority so quickly to a stranger she only spoke to over the phone? Well, the pranker didn’t call NASA… he called a fast food restaurant on the busiest day of the week. The exploitation takes a deeper level of perversion when you realize that the prankster is preying not only on Becky, but also on Sandra, by playing with her fears of her regional manager (who’s name the caller has already looked up) and alternately flattering her for meeting his demands. Sandra is manipulated because she’s interested in doing the right thing, motivated by pleasing her superiors, too tired from working to think straight, and (frankly) not educated enough to question authority, real or otherwise.

Fans of great film acting have a new heroine in Ann Dowd, who is never unbelievable as Sandra, resists the temptation to make her seem too stupid, and shows incredible depths to a character who might have been made comical in less capable hands. Sandra maintains a certain level of dignity that makes it difficult for her subordinates to take her too seriously when she tries to be a regular person. Outside of her relationship with Van (Bill Camp), who also gets drawn into the story, it seems that Sandra takes her job seriously, perhaps too seriously. Ann Dowd deserves the recognition she will be getting this year, hopefully at awards ceremonies and in further casting.

And so, more than anything, more than the uncomfortable nude scene and the excruciating manipulations of the prank caller, the film is really about the importance we put into our jobs, what we think is moral, the information we use to process our decisions, and who we choose to serve and obey. It’s a well-made and thoughtful film that deserves attention and discussion.