The field of nominations for the original screenplay Oscar this year is rife with darkness, violence and psychodrama - from the gratuitous shoot-em-ups and racial slurs in Django Unchained to the all-too-real, moment to moment hunt for Bin Laden depicted in Zero Dark Thirty.
Thank goodness for Moonrise Kingdom, which brings a lightness and charm to the field that make it stand out among the other, more serious entries. The film, a first-love fairy tale between two misfit pre-teens, is set on a windswept New England outpost in 1965. Its co-authors are Wes Anderson, (Bottle Rocket, The Fantastic Mr. Fox), and Roman Coppola. Coppola entered the family business portraying the young Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, Part II, directed by his father, Francis Ford Coppola.
Along the way he’s served as a cinematographer, producer, director of music videos and second-unit director to his sister, writer/director Sofia Coppola. He both wrote and directed his next release, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, which stars Charlie Sheen, Bill Murray, Patricia Arquette and yet another member of la familia Coppola, Jason Schwartzman. Anderson and Coppola previously teamed up to write The Darjeeling Limited.
In their latest collaboration, the writers have managed to create an authentically off-kilter world, buoyed by whimsy but grounded by a very real love story with very real consequences for its protagonists.
Guest:
Roman Coppola, producer, director and writer. His screenplay for Moonrise Kingdom, co-written with director Wes Anderson, is nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay