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The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
It’s so nice to connect with a Wes Anderson movie again. I’ve been mostly a fan from the beginning but his career has as many ups as downs for me, often getting lost in his distinct dollhouse style of artifice and losing the sense of wounded humanity that marks his best movies. I haven’t truly loved a Wes Anderson movie since 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I consider one of his very best. It’s been a long ten years of feeling indifferent or distant to that signature Anderson twee whimsy. I took my wife to see 2021’s The French Dispatch in the theater, and this was her first Anderson movie, and it also happened to be his worst movie, plus with Timothee Chalamet, an actor she isn’t fond of. I feel like I ruined her impression of this indie auteur and the question over his enduring popularity. 2023’s Asteroid City had some interesting ideas and dramatic potential, but its multiple framing devices and layers of obfuscation smothered what I could have enjoyed about its drama buried underneath. It is with that accruing disappointment that I began to question whether new Wes Anderson movies just weren’t for me, and that’s why I find The Phoenician Scheme a welcomed return to form that makes me relieved. The idiosyncratic tactician that is Anderson can still make a movie that engages me on different levels, including an emotional one, which I’ve been missing for so long from his recent output.
So I’m going to do something a little different with this review. I’m going to specify and articulate why this movie works for me, namely why it resonates and succeeds where his other movies of late have not. I suppose you could argue every film critique is charged with explaining the nuts and bolts of an opinion, but I’m going to really try and crack open why The Phoenician Scheme is a better movie overall.
1) Emotional investment. Primarily Anderson is known for his heavily mannered, expertly curated style, which is why he seems to be the go-to pastiche for A.I. film juxtaposition experiments (“What if Wes Anderson directed Star Wars?” etc.). Many of Anderson’s movies are populated with hurt people trying to reconnect, a subject that has great emotional appeal. However, if you cannot connect with the characters or their dynamic or the relationship stakes, then it can feel like an afterthought to all that fancy production design and camera placement. With The Phoenician Scheme, the movie is an adventure film but it’s really about a father (Benicio del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda) trying to reconnect with his estranged adult daughter (Mia Threapleton as Sister Liesel). The father is a billionaire robber baron set in a vaguely mid 19-century setting. The daughter is a newly enshrined nun who believes that her father had her mother killed. Right away, we have very different perspectives and exciting conflict between them. He’s an arms dealer and willing to have key parts of his scheme involve a famine and slave labor. Her very involvement in the convent is itself a reaction to her father, who sent her away to live there at age five. She doesn’t want to be like him, who she views as on the wrong side of morality, but she also wants to get to know this man better and get her own answers. Her convent needs her to proceed to get a significant donation from her father. He wants to hire her on a trial basis to see if she’s fit to be his sole heir. They’re stuck together on an adventure that forces them closer, and the ensuing relationship that begins to build, with old hurts melting away to new revelations and new aches of yearning, comes across as very involving and emotionally rewarding. I was actually quite taken by the father-daughter relationship and their bickering, which organically gives way to better understanding and personal growth from both parties. They make each other a little better than they could be, and they recognize that despite their differences and hurt, they do genuinely care about the other. Korda is such an unflappable dilettante and yet the very notion that his daughter thinks he might have killed her mother from rumors deeply upsets him. The rest of the movie is essentially both characters directly and indirectly trying to prove themself to the other and also acknowledge and accept the other person. The core of this movie works because the core relationship is given serious and deliberate development to be meaningful. It’s about a broken family recognizing their connection to one another and desire to be connected.
2) The vignettes do add up. The folly of The French Dispatch was that it was a collection of short films, meaning that every twenty-minutes or so it felt like having to start over again with character introductions and relationship development. It didn’t feel like it added up to much. With The Phoenician Scheme, the film is structured around the different investors that Korda has to convince to cover a higher percentage of a budget shortfall for the big plan. It might sound pretty lackluster on paper but it becomes a larger goal that each segment builds to, and each new investor and setting allows Anderson to explore a new aspect of his characters. One situation involves a literal game of basketball and another involves taking a bullet to save an investor. Each situation allows us to change things up without losing the momentum of building toward that larger goal, as well as continuing to build the progression of the character relationships. With a vignette movie, each segment is a beginning, middle, and end that starts over with the next. With this, we have those mini stories with each new investor, but the whole is still advancing. It allows Anderson to explore a variety of comedy and story options while still keeping his attention to the bigger picture, thus earning our continued investment and more payoffs.
3) This is still a very funny movie. That droll yet whimsical tone we expect from Wes Anderson is very present, and I was smiling and laughing throughout. I particularly loved a running joke where Korda offers each new guest a hand grenade like a welcome present. Korda also has repeated assassination attempts, which is the impetus for him reaching out to his daughter because he knows he won’t outlive every assassination attempt. However, in the meantime, each new assassination attempt is presented as another predictable annoyance, and I enjoyed that with every one Korda admits, “I think that guy used to work for me.” The basketball game of horse is wonderfully absurd and dryly serious at the same time, elevated by Bryan Cranston’s considerable commitment to the bit. Another great source of comedy is Michael Cera as the third significant character to the adventure, Bjorn, an assistant to Korda and also an entomologist. He’s such a delightful nonplussed addition to the trio, providing an outsider perspective to the family drama and reminding us how not normal everything is. I heartily enjoyed how his nerdy passion for bugs keeps inserting itself in all sorts of unexpected situations. The excesses of Korba’s lifestyle, and his seeming history of amorality, allows for just about anything to be possible or referenced, opening the comedy even further into surreal asides still tethered to characterization.
4) The added religious elements provide a deeper introspection for the characters and the viewer. Every time Korba has a near-death experience from his latest assassination attempt, we have a black and white sequence of Korba interacting with the afterlife. In one sequence he’s being judged by St. Peter, then God, then his own deceased wives. Each opportunity with the afterlife is a reminder for Korba about his sins and mistakes and a motivator to do better. The stylized realm is mysterious without being overt in its directions, allowing Korba to stumble around looking for guidance, like when God is annoyed that He isn’t recognized as the Big Guy. I was amused by these little interludes but they also act like a moral intervention for our main character, and his growing interest is a sign that his daughter’s influence is affecting him. It adds a depth to the character as well as a weightier sense of celestial consequences for a life of misdeeds, and it helps to better realism the character’s arc as well as set him up for change. It allows an introspection over legacy. These are also the segments you’ll get the most blink-and-miss-them cameos, like Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and F. Murray Abraham.
5) Smaller ensemble to devote characterization. Everyone wants to work with Anderson, and he keeps an impressive list of actors who continuously reappear, even if it’s only for seconds, anything to just be back into the ornate world of a Wes Anderson fantasy. His last few films have been stuffed with characters but there wasn’t enough for everyone to do (go ahead, try and remember what Steve Carrell did in Asteroid City). The narrative gets fractured trying to provide enough moments and screen time for all these distaff characters. A larger cast is not inherently a doomed prospect, but it does mean more attention and development needs to be made, and with less time, to ensure those characters are meaningful and well developed. The French Dispatch and Asteroid City couldn’t do that for me. This time Anderson condenses his important characters down to a manageable trio. We have other supporting players but they typically come and go through the different vignettes, each getting their turn with the main players. This keeps the focus on the winning character dynamic of the father-daughter buddy comedy, and with Bjorn bumbling along and finding himself becoming more fond of Liesel. There are some fun twists and turns with the three characters but no matter the external obstacles or silliness, the emphasis remains on these three and their relationships. It all works so much better.
6) The acting by the Anderson newcomers is greatly enjoyable. It’s shocking that this is the first time Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off) has been in a Wes Anderson movie because his comic sensibilities are a natural fit for this universe. The direction his character goes lets Cera have even more ways to have fun, and each new turn made me love his character and the performance even more. I also love that, despite all the revelations, at his core, Bjorn really is a nerd who loves talking about insects. The real discovery is Threapleton (The Buccaneers), though maybe we shouldn’t have been so surprised considering she is the adult daughter of Kate Winslet (do you feel old now too?). She holds her own with her many scenes with del Toro and is able to hone her withering glare into a considerable weapon of disapproval. Watching her character blossom and test her boundaries, like when she says she’s only drank communion wine and is introduced to a new form of alcohol at every jaunt that she feels compelled to try. It’s a character that is slowly recognizing more about herself and the possibilities of this life.
The Phoenician Scheme isn’t a deviation from the tried-and-true Wes Anderson formula; it’s a better calibration of what makes that style and formula continue to resonate for so many fans. I’m apparently in a small minority with my esteem for this picture, and that’s fine by me. I’ve outlined through this review the reasons why it was a much more enjoyable and worthwhile entertainment for me, and if you found yourself nodding along, then perhaps it could work its query magic on you as well. It’s nice to be charmed again by a Wes Anderson movie but to also feel something rather than distant appreciation for the carefully composed sets and photography. I actually cared about these characters and their journey. The end results mattered to me. Their plights mattered. If you’re like me and falling from the Wes Anderson bandwagon, then perhaps The Phoenician Scheme might pull you back aboard.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Asteroid City (2023)
It’s not a good sign that a week after watching a movie I was racking my brain to try and remember what I had watched, and it’s even worse when it’s a movie by Wes Anderson, a filmmaker with such a distinct sense of intricate style it’s now become a go-to A.I. test for untalented people. Asteroid City has the makings of an appealing comic escapade set in a Southwest small town known for its tiny asteroid, and once aliens make their presence known, the entire town and its tourists and wanderers and scientists are quarantined. The problem comes almost immediately, as the movie is presented through several added layers of obfuscating framing devices. The story itself is a play, and we’re watching a movie version, but then also the play of the movie, and the behind the scenes of its now-deceased playwright toiling with his authorial messages and stubborn actors, and it feels like two different movies at odds with one another. The Asteroid City sequence is the more engaging, with some sweet storylines like Jason Schwartzman as a widower processing loss with his family, including his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) who never liked him, while beginning to find a possible romantic kinship with a struggling actress and single mom (Scarlett Johansson). I enjoyed weird little asides about the history of this little town, like a vending machine for land ownership, and s science fair with brainy whiz kids finding their own comradery. There’s even a nice moment in the meta-textual framing where the Schwartzman actor recites an exorcised dialogue scene with the actress who played his deceased wife in the play. It’s elegantly heartfelt. However, the added layers don’t really add extra insight or intrigue but serve as muddy trappings, making meaning less likely rather than more. It feels like Anderson didn’t have enough material with the central story so he added on the meta to make up the difference. There are too many moving pieces and too many characters, and versions of characters, here to settle into something grander. The whimsy and visual style of Anderson is still evident throughout every highly-crafted and pristine arrangement in the movie, so if you’re an Anderson diehard, he still has his charms. This is two Anderson movies in a row that felt disorganized, distracted, and chiefly under-developed, and I’m starting to worry that the form has taken over the function as storyteller.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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The French Dispatch (2021)
Wes Anderson’s latest quirk-fest is his usual cavalcade of straight-laced absurdity, exquisite dollhouse-level production design, famous faces popping in for droll deadpans, and the overall air of not fully getting it. The French Dispatch is structured like you’re watching the issue of a news magazine come to visual life, meaning that the two-hour movie is comprised of mainly three lengthy vignettes and a couple of short asides. This narrative decision limits the emotional involvement and I found myself growing restless with each of the three segments. I was amused throughout but each felt like a short film that had been pushed beyond its breaking point. Perhaps that is Anderson’s wry, subtle point considering the entire journalistic voice of the movie feels like somebody made a movie in the style of one of those esoteric, supposedly “funny” New Yorker cartoons. It’s occasionally so arch and droll that it feels too removed from actual comedy. This is not the most accessible Anderson movie for a newbie; it’s very bourgeois in the kinds of people it follows, the stories it pursues, and the intellectual and political conflicts it demonstrates. The first and best segment follows Tilda Swinton discussing a heralded but imprisoned experimental artist (Benicio del Toro) who is dealing with the pressure to produce. The second segment follows Frances McDormand as she investigates a Parisian student union revolting against the ignorant powers that be. The third segment follows Jeffrey Wright recounting an assignment where he investigated a master police chef (not “chief”) and gets in the middle of a wacky hostage negotiation. Each of them has the requisite charm and random asides we’ve come to expect from Anderson, including a leotard-wearing strongman that is called upon by the police to help during the hostage crisis, but it felt more like a collection of overlong short films than a cohesive whole. If you’re already a fan, by all means, step into The French Dispatch. If you’re new to the idiosyncratic world of indie film’s most precise curator, then I’d advise starting with a more digestible and earlier Anderson entry. I enjoyed myself during stretches, was getting frustrated during other stretches, and I hope Anderson focuses more on the big picture of his next picture.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Isle of Dogs (2018)
The quirky imagination of Wes Anderson and his stylized, symmetrical, painterly approach to filmmaking has always seemed like a natural fit for the world of animation. Stop-motion has a wonderfully tactile and woebegone appreciation that furthermore seems like a natural fit, and 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of Anderson’s best and most enjoyable films. If it were not for the considerable time it takes to make animated films, I’d be happy if Anderson stayed in this realm. Isle of Dogs is about a future where dogs are blamed for an infectious disease and as a result are banned and quarantined to a garbage island off the coast of Japan. One little boy dares to venture to this island to find his beloved missing dog. From there, he’s escorted by a pack of dogs, led by Chief (voiced by Bryan Cranston), across dangerous tracks of the island while avoiding the boy’s adopted family, the mayor of Nagasaki. This is a whimsical, beguiling, detail-rich world to absorb, but it also has splashes of unexpected darkness and violence to jolt (though the dark turns are consistently nullified). It’s a highly entertaining movie although the characters and story are rather thin. The different dogs are kept as stock roles, and the main boy, Atari, is pretty much a cipher for dog owners. However, the film can tap into an elemental emotional response when discussing the relationship between man and dog. If you’re a dog person, it’s hard not to feel a twinge of emotions when a dog is given a loving owner and sense of family. There is one element of the movie that feels notably off, and that’s the fact that the dogs speak English and the local Japanese characters speak their native tongue but without the aid of subtitles. it doesn’t exactly feel like Anderson is doing this as a source of humor, but I can’t figure out a good alternative reason for it. I’m sure Cranston’s distinctive growl would have sounded just as good speaking Japanese. Regardless, Isle of Dogs is a mid-pack Wes Anderson fantasia of inventive imagination and well worth getting lost within.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Wes Anderson is a filmmaker whose very name is a brand itself. There are a small number of filmmakers who have an audience that will pay to see their next film regardless of whatever the hell it may be about. Steven Spielberg is the world’s most successful director but just having his name attached to a movie, is that enough to make you seek it out and assume quality? If so, I imagine there were more than a few disappointed with War Horse and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But Wes Anderson has gotten to that height of audience loyalty after only seven movies, mostly because there are expectations of what an Anderson film will deliver. And deliver is what the quirky, fast-paced, darkly comic, and overall delightful Grand Budapest Hotel does.
In the far-off country of Zubrowka, there lays the famous hotel known the world over, the Grand Budapest. The head of the hotel, the concierge, is Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), a highly mannered Renaissance man who caters to the every whim of his cliental. Zero (Tony Revolori), an orphaned refugee, is Mr. Gustave’s apprentice, a lobby boy in training learning from the master in the ways of hospitality. Gustave likes to leave people satisfied, including the wealthy dowagers that come from far just for him (Gustave: “She was dynamite in the sack,” Zero: “She was… 84,” Gustave: “I’ve had older.”). One of these very old, very rich ladies is found murdered and in her rewritten will, the old bitty had left a priceless portrait to Gustave. Her scheming family, lead by a combustible Adrien Brody, plots to regain the painting, which Gustave and Zero have absconded with.
For Wes Anderson fans, they’ll be in heaven. I recently climbed back aboard the bandwagon after the charming and accessible Moonrise Kingdom, and Grand Budapest is an excellent use of the man’s many idiosyncratic skills. The dollhouse meticulous art design is present, as well as the supercharged sense of cock-eyed whimsy, but it’s a rush for Anderson to pair a story that fits snuggly with his sensibilities. The movie is a series of elaborate chases, all coordinated with the flair of a great caper, and the result is a movie over pouring with entertainment. Just when you think you have the film nailed down, Anderson introduces another conflict, another element, another spinning plate to his narrative trickery, and the whimsy and the stakes get taken up another notch. The point of contention I have with the Anderson films I dislike (Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited) is the superficial nature of the films. As I said in my review for Darjeeling, Anderson was coming across like a man “more interested in showing off his highly elaborate production design than crafting interesting things for his characters to do inside those complex sets.” With this film, he hones his central character relationships down to Gustave and Zero, and he can’t stop giving them things to do. Thankfully, those things have merit, they impact the story rather than serving as curlicue diversions. We get an art heist, a prison break, a ski chase, a murderous Willem Dafoe leaving behind a trail of bodies, not to mention several other perilous escapes. This is a film packed with fast-paced plot, with interesting actions for his actors, maybe even too packed, opening with three relatively unnecessary frame stories, jumping from modern-day, to the 1980s, back to the 1960s, and finally settling into the 1930s in our fictional Eastern European country.
The other issue with Anderson’s past films, when they have underachieved, is that the flights of whimsy come into conflict with the reality of the characters. That is not to say you cannot have a mix of pathos and the fantastical, but it needs to be a healthy combination, one where the reality of the creation goes undisturbed. With Grand Budapest, Anderson has concocted his best character since Rushmore’s Max Fisher. Gustave is another overachieving, highly literate, forward-driving charmer that casually collects admirers into his orbit, but he’s also a man putting on a performance for others. As the head of the Grand Budapest, he must keep the illusion of refinement, the erudite and all-knowing face of the luxurious respite for the many moneyed guests. He has to conceal all the sweat and labor to fulfill this image, and so he is a character with two faces. His officiously courtly manner of speaking can be quite comical, but it’s also an insightful indication that he is a man of the Old World, a nostalgic European realm of class and civilization on the way out with looming war and brutality. And as played by the effortlessly charming Fiennes (Skyfall), Gustave is a scoundrel that the audience roots for, sympathizes with, scolds, but secretly desire his approval, much like Zero. It is a magnificent performance that stands as one of the best in any Anderson film.
The fun of a Wes Anderson movie is the zany surprises played with deadpan sincerity, and there is plenty in Grand Budapest to produce smiles and laughter. It’s hard to describe exactly which jokes land the best in a Wes Anderson film because they form a patchwork that elevates the entire movie, building an odd world where oddballs can fit right in. It was under a minute before I laughed, and I smiled through just about every remaining minute of the film. I enjoyed a joke involving a dead cat that just kept being carried from scene to scene. I enjoyed a sexually graphic painting that just happened to be lying around. I enjoyed the fact that Zero draws on a mustache every morning to better fit in with the men of his day. But mostly I just enjoyed the characters interacting with one another, especially Gustave and Zero, which forms into the emotional core of the film. It begins as a zany chase film and matures as it continues, tugging at your feelings with the father/son relationship (there’s also a subtly sweet romance for Zero and a pastry girl played by Saoirse Ronan). One of the big surprises is the splash of dark violence that grounds the whimsy, reminding you of the reality of death as war and fascism creep on the periphery. In fact, the movie is rather matter-of-fact about human capacity for cruelty, so much so that significant characters will be bumped off (mostly off screen) in a style that might seem disarming and unsatisfying. It’s the mixture of the melancholy and the whimsy that transforms Grand Budapest into a macabre fairy tale of grand proportions.
The only warning I have is that many of the star-studded cast members have very brief time on screen. It’s certainly Fiennes and Revolori’s show, but familiar names like Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Jeff Goldblum, Lea Seydoux, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, F. Murray Abraham, and Bob Balaban are in the film for perhaps two scenes apiece, no more than three minutes of screen time apiece. Norton, Brody, and Dafoe have the most screen time of the supporting cast. Though how does Revolori age into the very non-ethnic Abraham? It reminded me of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (here me out) where, as she ages, Chun-Li becomes less and less Chinese in her facial appearance. Anyway, the brevity of cast screen time is not detrimental to the enjoyment of the film, considering all the plot elements being juggled, but I would have liked even more with the dispirit array of fun characters.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson at his best, pared down into a quirky crime caper anchored by a hilariously verbose scoundrel and his protégé. Naturally, the technical merits of the film are outstanding, from the intricate art direction and set dressing, to the period appropriate costumes, to the camerawork by longtime cinematographer Robert Yeoman. The movie is a visually lavish and handcrafted biosphere, a living dollhouse whose central setting ends up becoming a character itself. The trademark fanciful artifice is alive and well but this time populated with interesting characters, a sense of agency, and an accessible emotional core. The faults in Anderson’s lesser films have been fine-tuned and fixed here, and the high-speed plotting and crazy characters that continually collide left me amused and excited. If you’re looking for a pair of films to introduce neophytes into the magical world of Wes Anderson, you may want to consider Grand Budapest with Moonrise Kingdom (Royal Tenenbaums if they need bigger names). In the end, I think Anderson more than identifies with his main character, Gustave, a man enchanted in a world of his own creation, a world better than the real one. Who needs the real world when you’ve got The Grand Budapest Hotel?
Nate’s Grade: A
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Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
It feels good to be a Wes Anderson fan once again. The indie auteur has a very distinctive style that he seems to have little regard in altering. I’ve been critical of Anderson’s idiosyncratic style, comparing it to crafting wonderfully composed, intricate dollhouses minus compelling or relatable characters to inhabit these artfully constructed mini-worlds. Without that necessary element, it’s all just fancy window dressing. Finally, Anderson, with Moonrise Kingdom, has concocted another movie where the characters grab more of your attention than the backgrounds.
Set in 1965 on a small island just off the New England coast, the movie follows the adventures of Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward), both twelve years old. Sam has run away from his summer camp, the Khaki Scouts, led by Scout Master Ward (Ed Norton). Suzy has run away from her parents (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand). The small island’s one police officer, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), enlists the help of several Khaki Scouts he deputizes to find the missing duo. It’s revealed through a serried of letters, and flashbacks, that Sam and Suzy have been plotting their escape for over a year. They’re in love, and they’re going to make sure nobody interferes.
What more relatable than young love? Sam and Suzy just want to be together and the rest of the adult world seems intent on keeping them apart. Right away you’re pulling for these kids, rooting for their triumph, and the movie does a fantastic job of replicating the innocence of young love without overly romanticizing a very nervous, awkward time in life. When Sam and Suzy practice kissing, for what is obviously the first time, I defy anyone sitting in the audience not to feel a recognizable pang of insecurity. The experimentation is a tad more realistic than you might expect with the PG-13 rating but still nothing to shatter the youthful innocence of the picture. There is not a tawdry moment in Moonrise Kingdom. It’s a time in life when the knowledge of sex existed without a keen understanding of sensuality, like in Miranda July’s Me, and You, and Everyone We Know. It’s more like fumbling around with what you think is appropriate activity. Still, the fact that the movie features twelve-year-olds in their underwear dancing and mildly experimenting means Moonrise Kingdom might draw a swath of ticket-buyers for the wrong reasons (beware the patron in a raincoat).
The scrupulous attention to detail is the same obsessive quality you come to expect from a Wes Anderson movie. He builds living worlds and his color schemes and shot arrangements add much texture to this idiosyncratic landscape. Unlike Life Aquatic and Darjeeling Limited, these artistic elements work in harmony rather than conflict; Anderson actually seems to care about the people here. Chances are if you’re not a Wes Anderson fan, Moonrise Kingdom will probably not be the movie to win you over. The whimsical, storybook nature of the film actually accentuates the broader themes; bright-eyed exploration, the magic of possibility with love, and an unyielding hope. The movie feels like one of Suzy’s storied adventures come to life but without compromising the relatable character conflicts. The movie does build a nice head of steam thanks to the pursuit of our runaway romantics. There’s also a palpable sense of danger lurking, as the kids risk life and limb and even experience death, albeit a dog (Suzy: “Was he a good dog?” Sam: “Who’s to say?”). It’s a poignant tale of childhood but it doesn’t feel childish, a family film meant for people probably too young for families.
Moonrise Kingdom walks a fine line between whimsical and overly precious. Less skilled filmmakers haven fallen suit to making insufferably twee film productions consumed by their own indulgent sense of preciousness. Moonrise Kingdom is full of the typical Anderson quirk but it doesn’t overpower the narrative or define the characters in such limited personal scopes. There’s plenty of laughs to be had with the film, most in the wry chuckle variety; I was laughing throughout, finding those staple peculiar touches to be the most amusing, from the Scout Master reading a magazine titled “Indian Corn,” to Bob Balaban’s questionably omniscient narrator, to some improvised natural earrings.
The movie is consistently funny but also far sweeter than I would have imagined given the detached, arch nature of Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited. Again, the kids are precocious and the adults act more like children, but everyone is really hurting and lonely and looking for a means of coping or persevering, with the biggest source of pain being love; the longing, the ache, the uncertainty of when and if it will return. Usually Anderson’s films involve dysfunctional families mending some degree of their brokenness by film’s end and formulating a connection. With Moonrise Kingdom, the plot is on two kids falling in love and their will to endure. I appreciate that Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola (Darjeeling Limited) do not trivialize or look down upon the relationship between Sam and Suzy (“Oh, it’s just puppy love you silly, naïve, waifs.”). To them it feels like everything. The tender approach to young love opens the film up to a broader audience without compromising the director’s unique vision. I’d hardly say the film approaches overt sentimentality. What’s there feels earned and more reserved than what we might expect from burgeoning romance. When the expressions of affection occur, they have greater weight and make a greater impact charming the audience.
The first-time child actors do a credible job with carrying the film. Hayward and Gilman are charming and easy to like, though I wish Anderson had pushed his young actors a tad harder. They seem stiff at times and a little above-it-all in attitude. I applaud the kids for acting somewhat reserved rather than going crazy with their budding hormones. Both characters are also characterized as “emotionally disturbed,” though this seems like another of the film’s damning details about the out-of-touch adults dictating their lives. I just wished we sensed a greater degree of urgency from them about this whole adventure and the possibility of losing one another. They feel a tad blasé, all things considered.
The bigger celebrity names in the cast assume smaller roles, and many of the supporting characters are thinly sketched with personal conflicts mostly kept at a simmer. These are grownups that, at their heart, don’t know what to do with their feelings. Sam and Suzy feel liberated by their feelings. I found Murray’s blustery sense of anger amusing, and Willis does some subtle work to give you a sense how truly lonely his character is to the core, but it’s Jason Schwartzman (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) who steals the show in my book as the fast-talking, mercurial, scheming Cousin Ben who seems to have whatever somebody needs. When he agrees to marry Sam and Suzy and acknowledges that their marriage will not be deemed official under any court whatsoever, you get a sense that Moonrise Kingdom has been missing a propulsive and delightful character like Cousin Ben. I wish he had been inserted earlier, but this is Sam and Suzy’s movie, after all.
It’s not on the same level as Rushmore of The Royal Tenenbaums (my favorite Anderson films), but it’s a film that feels a lot more alive and emotionally resonant. It feels like a return to form for Anderson, remembering that the characters and their drama need to be as engaging as the set design. The turbulent young love of Sam and Suzy is sweet and leads to some tender yet poignant moments that warm the heart without making you overdose on cheap sentiment. The idiosyncratic touches are all there, the ironic humor, and the stellar soundtrack selection (Benjamin Britten’s deconstructive orchestral marches stand out as a thematic core), everything you’d expect from a Wes Anderson movie, except this time you’ll find the characters recognizable, their struggle compelling, and the end rewarding. Moonrise Kingdom isn’t the most substantive film playing in theaters but damned if it isn’t the most alluring, amusing, and affectionate, yet all on its own terms. Who would have guessed that a pair of twelve-year-olds would help us show what real love is in 2012?
Nate’s Grade: A-
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The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
I’m starting to think Wes Anderson may become his own worst enemy. The man seems trapped in his precious, idiosyncratic style that revolves around intricate, dollhouse-style production design, slow-motion and simple pan shots, clever-to-smug characters, family dysfunction that coalesces somewhat by the end, and a soundtrack full of hip, retro songs. I like Wes Anderson; I loved his first three films, was rather lukewarm on 2004’s Life Aquatic, but The Darjeeling Limited is pretty much a bland rehash of the same. Instead of a father reconnecting with his long-forgotten son it’s three brothers reconnecting in the wake of their father’s death and mother’s abandonment. The humor is fairly subdued and while the movie is brief it seems to run out of gas early on and get repetitive. I think Anderson is more interested in showing off his highly elaborate production design than crafting interesting things for his characters to do inside those complex sets. I didn’t feel a blip of emotion for any of the character, all of who have some lasting fear of women ever since their mother ran out to become a nun. There’s kind of an unsettling misogynistic vibe in the movie against women, which is an unfortunate surprise. There’s a spiritual quest that some may relate to but I found it superficial at best, intended to gloss over the plot holes and character miscues. I wish Anderson well, but his next venture behind the camera might work better if he threw out his fraying filmmaker playbook.
Nate’s Grade: C+
nathanzoebl 
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