CriterionCast

New Animated Companion Short For Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom Arrives

With his return to live action filmmaking following a stint on the animation side of things with the great Fantastic Mr. Fox, director Wes Anderson is not only back with what may be his biggest hit to date, Moonrise Kingdom, but he’s also got a short film to go with it.

Just like he did for the Criterion-approved Darjeeling Limited, the director has made and now released a new short prelude to his indie darling, but with his recent run in animation appearing to have changed him, he’s got some more animation for us.

In the film, we follow a young girl named Suzy, who falls for a pen-pal, ultimately running away with the boy. With her are six books that she stole from her local library, which she reads from during the film. What better place to draw inspiration from for a short animated feature than these six stories? Anderson went ahead, nabbed six artists to draw up cinematic adaptations of these stories, and tossed in Bob Balaban to narrate the short.

Personally, I find this thing so damn charming. It’s a beautiful and inspired short film, and a stunning bit of animation, particularly the third story. All of them are so bloody inventive, and it really gives a great insight into a character in a film that has seemed to hit something in the hearts of Anderson fans and even his detractors. What do you think? Right now, it’s only available on EW’s website, so head over there to check it out.

Source EW

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.