Summer Delight: 'Moonrise Kingdom'

Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom," showing at the Grandin Theatre in Roanoke, is so full of delight and metaphor that you'll want to see it twice.  Or three times. Maybe four. It's one of those mighty surprises that makes the Grandin special and movie-going a small adventure.

This is the tale of two 12-year-old lovers--and yep, they're that; keep that in mind when you have the kids in tow--from difficult backgrounds who plot to be together on an isolated and little-inhabited island as a storm forms, adults and Khaki Scouts search furiously for them and they are pushed ever-closer.

This is one of those little pictures where you can play in the margins for two hours with the metaphors, star watching (Bruce Willis, the wondrous Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand, the deadpan Bill Murray at his best, Harvey Keitel (for whom I could not find a credit), Jason Schwartzman, Edward Norton and the kids, Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman), imaginative cinematography and set design (is that a doll house or not?) and a story that is rare. Occasionally, there is a sound problem, but I'm not sure that's the movie and not the Grandin's equipment. It's an old theater and you don't go there for modernity. You go for the movies, the popcorn and the iced herbal tea (I do, anyway).

I'll mention once again that this is not a movie for young kids for a number of reasons, sex being only one (though I don't have any problem with it personally). There's some graphic violence--kid on kid--that could upset some of the more sensitive types or put ideas into the head of the less sensitive babies.

Go see the movie, though, and when it gets to DVD or one of the online streamers, see it again so you get all of it.