The film Moonrise Kingdom is a story of love, childhood innocence, and the trauma inherent in many in our society. We are a society of flawed individuals, trying our best to make our way through a broken and beautiful world. We all stumble and fall, and experience great joy and triumph in equal measure. This paradox is beautifully displayed through the deft directorial hand of Wes Anderson, as he crafts a tale of two children finding in each not only love for one another but love for themselves as well.
As we follow the story of Sam and Suzy, we are transported into a wondrous and whimsical world full of dry and sardonic humor, bathed in a color palette of a variety of colors that calls back to how we might have seen the world around us in our youth. This film is a love letter to the beauty of childhood and the love to be found in others even when broken down to one’s lowest, and I believe this is most beautifully displayed in the final scene of the film. As we reach the film’s conclusion, we find two broken individuals in Suzy and Sam who through a grand adventure have managed to pick up the pieces and become whole again.
This scene of serenity and mutual understanding between these two young lovers carries all the unique cinematic elements that work to build the greater themes to be found in this Wes Anderson film, whether it be the use of cinematography, mise-en-scene, music, and the performances from the young Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward. Each of these elements works together to lay the foundation for the beating heart of this film and is key in creating the nostalgic world of Moonrise Kingdom.
The scene begins with a shot of a bedroom, most notably centered on Suzy laid back reading a novel on the window ledge. Her siblings are playing with toys on the ground beneath her, seemingly oblivious to anything but their own individual imagination. The camera is perfectly symmetrical in its focus on the bedroom, with the symmetry only juxtaposed by the random belongings scattered throughout the room. The only noise is the radio station, mirroring the very first scene in the film in which we see Suzy’s house.
The entire scene is bathed in yellow, emitting a warmth akin to lazy afternoons when getting off school in youth. As the shot pans 90 degrees to the right, it symmetrically centers on the hallway with a cat lazing about directly in the middle of it. This shot is perhaps even more notable in its symmetrical quality, with both sides of the hallway almost perfectly mirroring the other.
The shot pans another 90 degrees to the right, eventually settling on Sam facing toward the other children, seemingly painting a portrait of his young flame that lies before him. Sam is yet again perfectly centered in the frame. The peace of the shot is only broken up by Suzy’s parents yelling for their children to come down to dinner.
This first shot of the scene is notable in its long length, and for how perfectly it sets the tone for what follows. After a series of mishaps and an adventure that nearly ended with them falling to their deaths, we have now cut to a place of serenity, a metaphorical Eden that lay beyond the horizon as they crossed the daunting expanse. This scene already displays its characteristic quirky style of Anderson, with the camera making abrupt stops as it travels through a bedroom straight out of a hazy childhood dream.
Everything in the setting is almost too perfect, like when an individual remembers their youth. We always maintain the good to be found in our past, while simultaneously neglecting the bad. This connection mirrors the journey of the young Sam and Suzy, who both experienced rough childhoods, whether that be in the abuse and scary nature of Sam or in the emotional neglect and lack of understanding in Suzy. Through an emotional journey, they are finally at a place in which they are forming memories of good that will stay with them for decades to come.
Following the parent’s call, we find the denizens of the room in a rush to separate destinations. The siblings quickly gather themselves off the floor and rush out of view to head downstairs to avoid their parents beckoning for them a second time. As Suzy gets up off the ledge, we find Sam rushing to her side, then beginning to head towards the window to scramble out after looking into her eyes for but a moment.
During this, the movie score begins to play, an almost melancholic and dreamy chant that calls back to simpler times. After we see Sam crawl out and jump out of view, we are quickly introduced to a series of quick shots between Suzy and Sam as she peers out the window and he leans up and stares back. The score is almost dreamlike, a representation of the warmth and feeling of pure innocent love to be found in youth.
As the orchestral chant continues, it increases in intensity as their long stare goes on. The score matches the intensity of the emotion you can feel being shared between these two children who built themselves anew from the broken pieces of their past, a yearning for the future that lies ahead and a feeling of at last being at peace with the past that lies behind them. The warm yellow tone of the scene furthers this feeling of melancholy and peace and makes apparent this newfound peace Sam and Suzy have found.
After sharing smiles of mutual love and understanding, Sam says an almost excited bye, focused not on his leaving but on the fact, he will see her again soon. The dialogue is unique in how it is drowned in the wonder and innocent excitement of childhood, and the alluring mystique of his whispered words represents the youthful focus on the positivity to be found in their future as opposed to the negativity of his having to leave.
His cadence is symbolic of the endless possibility that is felt in childhood, always excited about what the next day might bring. After his cheerful goodbye, we see Suzy pull out her signature binocular with the intention to watch Sam as he treks on out of her yard. As we follow Sam’s path, we eventually see him come to his destination: the police car with his newfound father figure waiting to pick him up.
This is perhaps the closing act of Sam’s arc throughout the movie apart from the love he found in Suzy, as the two emotional endings mirror one another in the moral implications for the young boy. After feeling adrift in a world of foster care where he never truly belonged, Sam has, at last, found a place in the arms of an equally broken man who lacked any purpose in the monotonous routine of his life. In each other they found what they individually lacked; a relationship characterized perhaps even more than the father-son dynamic by how they are almost equals.
Sam is wise beyond his years, and in the formerly beaten down Police chief he has found someone who will not only love and care for him but respect him. These shots are further enhanced by the simultaneously colorful and muted color palette and by the echoing score of wonder undercutting the emotion of this scene. Also noticeable is the slow pace of this whole scene, with each shot taking its time to develop, with long takes on both relaxation and movement.
This scene denies the risk of being plodding, instead finding a youthful balance of speed and slowness that feels authentic to the daily shuffle of childhood. Before getting in the car, Sam looks back at Suzy one last time, wherefore she proceeds to blow him a kiss goodbye. His look back at her after this wistful kiss is the emotional catalyst of his journey to find love and belonging in a world that has turned him away, the raw antithesis of the emotional state he was in during the film’s earlier moments.
He is a boy transformed, maintaining this wit and independence while regaining his innocence and love for himself and others he had perhaps lost in his turbulent childhood. His content and loving look underpins his whole emotional arc, showing a boy at last at peace with both himself and his place in the world.
As he gets in the car and rides off with his new father, we cut back to Suzy peering at him as he goes out of view. As she gets up to head downstairs, we watch as she begins to head for the room’s exit in a wide shot of the room. Very notable of this shot, and perhaps symbolic of her emotional arc in the film, is as she leaves, she proceeds to give a long look directly into the camera. She stares for several seconds before proceeding on her way.
Wes Anderson’s films are at times notable for the way in which they seemingly break the third wall, maintaining the authentic quality of the story being told and yet enhancing it at the same time. As Suzy looks at us from her melancholic world of wonder, we look back and share a mutual understanding with this character who has been through so much emotional turmoil.
She is a young girl who has finally found herself, found the ability to love herself, and let herself be seen and loved in turn. She is young and emotionally immature, and yet wise beyond her years still very much like the boy who just crawled out her window. As we look into her eyes, we feel seen even as an abstract audience watching this fictional tale.
And through this, we gain a true understanding of what Suzy has gained through her emotional arc: she, at last, feels seen in a world where she always felt invisible. She has spent her whole life watching others through the lens of her binoculars, and at last, she feels as if she deserved to be watched in turn.
As Suzy goes out of view after this look at us, the shot tracks down to the painting Sam had been working on. What we find looking back at us is not the view of Suzy we had expected, but an intricate portrait of the beach where Suzy and Sam had stayed at the end of their trek through the island. As we gaze into the beautifully painted lines, the shot of Sam’s work transitions and dissolves into the beach itself.
We see the waves crashing on the shore, and the wind rustling through the tall trees, and in the sand where Sam and Suzy had formerly camped, we see stones set into the ground. We see that “Moonrise Kingdom” has been spelled out in stones in the serene scene by the two young lovers during their stay. In this final shot, we see the place where Suzy and Sam, at last, found themselves, where they gained a new understanding of not only themselves but each other and their place in the world.
I take this final shot to perhaps not be a literal demonstration of how the beach looks, but of how Sam remembers it, which I would argue is altogether more important. This beach, in his and Suzy’s view, represents the start of their new beginning, their newfound hopes and dreams birthplace.
This is a film simultaneously about the end of childhood and the regaining of love and innocence. There is a compromise at the heart of this film, wherein these two youths wise beyond their years have found their place in society and come of age, and yet have managed to hold on to the youthful love that has made them whole.
They have spent much of the film fighting the individuals and institutions that would hold them down and keep them apart, and in the end, are spared this fate through their courage to forge their own path. There is a true undercurrent of redemption flowing in this film’s veins, whether it be in the worn-down chief finding something worth fighting for, or the orphan setting out to prove his worth in a society that has turned its back on him.
There is both a renewing and redemptive nature in love, in which new life can be found and built from the ruins of what lies behind. The unique directorial style of Anderson instills within this film an almost fable-like quality that reminds us how we might maintain the nostalgic memories of our childhood.
In a film that deals with heavy themes, the dreamlike, colorful cinematography, and meticulous, overtly symmetrical mise-en-scene somehow combine to further ground a film in its exploration of childlike love and innocent wonder. Even the almost unrealistic maturity to be found in Suzy and Sam furthers the deft tone and themes of this film, as the sardonic wit and ingenuity to be found in these kids are metaphorically representative of how we each individually see ourselves when we are young.
We are so steadfast and confident in ourselves when children, whether it be intellectually in the realm of academics or emotionally, and only when older do we reminisce and realize our immaturity. These qualities individually could lessen the impact of the moral implications to be found in this fantastical world, but together become something altogether wondrous. This is a world of not only childhood love, but resilience against those set against you, and the imagination of what lies ahead, with this wonder of the future characterized by both its naivety and simple beauty.
We the audience cannot truly know what lies ahead for Sam and Suzy, and yet in the end I find this is altogether not the point to be taken from this story of young love. In the end, it does not matter what the future holds, but these two broken individuals have at last regained the ability to look toward the future joyfully, and innocently imagine it in its endless, tantalizing possibility.
