Wes Anderson is the most generous of modern directors. His films are filled to the top with vivid colours, music and characters. They all seem just a bit larger than life. Their houses have a kind of inner life other movie homes can’t match, with visual jokes tucked into every corner.

Detractors have hounded Anderson for this mannered style. What else do they want from him? Realism? There’s plenty of that to go around. The goal of any good director should be creating unique worlds in which we are allowed temporary access. They need not resemble the real one in every detail. It’s not all superficial; even Anderson’s weakest movies – Bottle Rocket (1996), The Life Aquatic (2005) – have characters driven by deep emotion and motivation.

Moonrise Kingdom, his seventh feature, continues that style. The first scene scans the Bishop house and tells us more about its occupants in a minute or two than a half hour of exposition. The house sits on an island off the coast of Maine, where Mr. (Bill Murray) and Mrs. (Frances McDormand) Bishop have raised four children. Their daughter Suzy (Kara Hayward) likes hardcover novels and French rock ‘n’ roll music, as Anderson’s characters occasionally do, but this conceals a restless temperament. Last summer an orphaned scout named Sam (Jared Gilman) won her affection, and now he’s set to return. Sure enough Sam makes a great escape from his troop, led by an unusually pitiful Edward Norton, and picks Suzy up for a cross-island adventure.

The rest of the film involves the adults’ hapless attempts to contain the young lovebirds. They are not bad kids, just a little heedless as most are. They set up their own little home on a beach and dub it “Moonrise Kingdom.” It’s a beautiful spot but what are they gonna do, live there forever? In my favourite sequence they are taken in by “Cousin” Ben (Jason Schwartzman)  one of those Wes Anderson characters who seem to be experiencing their own movie just off to the side. I forget whose cousin he actually is.

Gilman and Hayward are fine actors, if not the best that money could buy. It hardly matters. They don’t look like kids eager to audition for a movie. Gilman has a round, expressive face that makes a scene of courtship, in which he sneaks backstage at Suzy’s theater production and confronts her, more believable than it should be. Yes, she is one of those beautiful movie girls who falls for the geek without hesitation, but there’s charm in Sam’s boldness.

I enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom. You might not. The instant-backlash nature of the internet has eradicated the idea that some entertainments are just not for everyone. I find it hard to argue with movies so clearly bred by an eccentric personality; why should we expect artists like Wes Anderson to tone it down? Then again, not everyone likes French rock ‘n’ roll music.

Director: Wes Anderson
eOne, 94 minutes
Rating: 4/5