Moonrise Kingdom

The first film I saw at the film festival was Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson. This is my review: Moonrise Kingdom was okay. This is actually maybe unfair, but all my friends liked it so much and it has been hyped up a lot, so I feel like I have to think differently to them. If everyone enjoys something I want to look for reasons why it sucks. I don't know why this is, personality defect? That aside, Moonrise Kingdom was a nice film. It was what you expect of a Wes Anderson film. It was pretty to look at, Bill Murray was an amusing curmudgeon, it was "whimsical".

I guess I'm just not that 'into' whimsy. The kid actors were particularly good, however. Edward Norton was great and looked a bit like a sad dog. I love people who look like that. My favourite bit was probably when it the camera did a close-up on Suzy standing on the beach and it looked real Goddardian or something. I liked when Suzy hinted at being troubled and I thought the film would have been better if she was into something more interesting than fantasy novels; like burning herself with cigarettes or something!

I was talking to my favourite lecturer who I have an academic crush on and who I might try sleep with even though he is married because I want to know if I could be attracted to a 40/50 year old bod, and he said that he thought the way Anderson dealt with (or didn't deal with) the issue of children's sexuality detracted from the film. One film that does address children's sexuality well is Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse. It's about a twelve year-old girl who is teased for being ugly a lot; people at school call her 'dog face'.

 Her little sister is perfect and beautiful, and her older brother is a dweeb. Her life kind of sucks. This film really encapsulated how frustrating and rage-inducing being a kid can be. As I watched it I remembered all these things about childhood that I don't normally think about. How unfair life seems. How mean your parents can be. How much of a drag school is. Wait, I think about those things all the time. I still feel like that. Man everything sucks! Sometimes you do want to hit your siblings with a hammer! If you want to see a film that recalls a sense of childhood and what it feels like to be a kid, forget Anderson and watch Welcome to the Dollhouse.