Most of Wes Anderson’s movies have featured some kind of romance, from Richie and Margot’s semi-incestuous entanglement in The Royal Tenenbaums to the doomed romance of Zero and Agatha in The Grand Budapest Hotel, but his only full-on love story is Moonrise Kingdom, which sees star-crossed lovers Sam and Suzy running away to be together against the wishes of the Khaki Scouts and Suzy’s parents.
In many ways, Moonrise Kingdom is a traditional romance, but it also upends a lot of the usual tropes of love stories. Anderson’s signature visual style makes it feel completely unique, while the lead characters share an unforgettable dynamic.
Reinvents Tropes: Nostalgia
Rather than basing Moonrise Kingdom on any specific experiences from his own childhood, Wes Anderson drew the story from a fantasy he had as a kid, and those fantastical elements come through in the movie’s whimsical tone and storybook narrative.
The overriding feeling in Moonrise Kingdom is nostalgia. The whole movie feels like a memory. It’s a depiction of young love as it’s romanticized with rose-tinted glasses years later, not as it really is.
Great Love Story: The Characters Feel Like Real People
The quickest way for a romance movie to fail is for the characters to feel like one-note archetypes or fall into the trappings of unrealistic tropes because the emotions will only ring true if the characters ring true.
In Moonrise Kingdom, Sam and Suzy feel like real people. They have all the naivety and optimism and neuroses that all kids have, which makes them relatable.
Reinvents Tropes: Unlikable Leads
It’s not that Sam and Suzy are wholly unlikable, but they do have unlikable qualities (e.g. they’re both short with people and are quick to resort to violence), unlike the meet-cute couples that Hollywood is desperate for moviegoers to fall in love with.
But since they’re rounded, three-dimensional characters, they feel human, which makes them much more relatable — if not more likable — than the usual protagonists pushed by Hollywood romances.
Great Love Story: Us Versus The World
A lot of great love stories have an “us versus the world” quality. This is what separated Rob and Laura’s wholesome relationship in The Dick Van Dyke Show from the other sitcom marriages of the time (which have all aged horribly).
In Moonrise Kingdom, Sam and Suzy have to run away to a secluded beach just to spend some time together. Both the Khaki Scouts and Suzy’s parents want to keep them apart.
Reinvents Tropes: Cartoonish Elements
This was Wes Anderson’s first live-action film after entering the field of animation with Fantastic Mr. Fox, and it exemplifies how the director's live-action work became more cartoonish after he started making animated films and brought back some techniques.
Scenes like Sam being struck by lightning and Scout Master Ward saving Commander Pierce from the fireworks have an obvious cartoonish quality, but there are also subtler elements, like in-camera editing, that hark back to animation.
Great Love Story: Exploring Preteen Romance In A Non-Creepy Way
The way that Moonrise Kingdom depicts preteen love and child sexuality has been compared to The Blue Lagoon, but where The Blue Lagoon completely mishandles these themes, Moonrise Kingdom nails them.
As the story progresses, The Blue Lagoon basically morphs into a very uncomfortable softcore porno. Moonrise Kingdom focuses more on the emotions of love than the physical side, and those emotions are identifiable from the audience’s own childhoods.
Reinvents Tropes: Coming-Of-Age Story
Romance isn’t the only genre one could attach to Moonrise Kingdom — it’s also a great coming-of-age movie, calling back to the nostalgic tone of The 400 Blows.
It’s arguably more of a love story than a coming-of-age story, but both genres are rolled into it. It tells a love story by way of a coming-of-age story, or a coming-of-age story by way of a love story.
Great Love Story: Love Conquers All
Kids are basically powerless because adults run the world. Sam and Suzy’s future is up in the air when they run away in Moonrise Kingdom. Suzy’s parents want to keep her away from Sam, and Sam’s foster parents have disowned him and Social Services wants to give him electroshock therapy — it’s all out of their hands.
Throughout the movie, they keep fighting to be together and the fact that it all works out in the end posits that, like the Latin poet Virgil (and later Deep Purple) said, love conquers all.
Reinvents Tropes: Suzy’s Parents’ Failing Marriage
Most romance movies peddle happily-ever-after endings that suggest love is the be-all and end-all of happiness. When people find the one, all their problems go away and they’re happy for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, Moonrise Kingdom isn’t interested in repeating this fallacy.
All throughout Moonrise Kingdom, Sam and Suzy’s blossoming romance is contrasted with Suzy’s parents’ crumbling marriage. While Sam and Suzy are ecstatic at the beginning of their relationship, her parents are growing miserable many years into theirs.
Great Love Story: Jared Gilman & Kara Hayward Share Impeccable Chemistry
What makes Moonrise Kingdom work as a love story above all is that Anderson cast the perfect pair of young actors to play Sam and Suzy. Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward each nail their individual roles, and also share the special type of chemistry required by romantic stories.
Gilman and Hayward’s on-screen romance is more convincing than most of the couples played by adult actors. The palpable awkwardness in scenes like their first kiss might’ve been real, but either way, it works spectacularly.