Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson’s latest precious-fest is a lot better than most of his films. Here, as he does all too often, Anderson arranges an overcrowded cast of famous adult actors into pretty tableaus like so many dolls or action figures, but his two young leads, newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, get to play actual characters. They are both wonderfully off-beat, and their story of running away together and falling in love for the first time, occupies the magical middle section of this picture. If only the whole movie had just been about them!  Alas, there are the grown-ups, and their ho-hum non-storylines, which take up far too much of this picture.  Even so, there is enough to like in this film to make it the best live-action picture from one of my least favorite filmmakers working today.