Screenplay: Moonrise Kingdom

Premise
Moonrise Kingdom follows two lonely twelve-year-olds on the brink of adolescence who fall fiercely in love and decide to run away together from their small 1965 New England island community. Their disappearance triggers an earnest, often comic search that draws together bemused, beleaguered adults and a troop of Khaki Scouts. The story balances a child's intense private world against the awkward, fragile structures of adult society.

Narrative
Suzy Bishop and Sam Shakusky meet by chance and exchange secret letters, devising an escape to a secluded cove where they intend to build a life away from their respective hardships. Suzy, a bookish girl coping with unhappy parents and a sense of alienation, and Sam, a resourceful Khaki Scout orphaned by neglect, are determined to create a space where their feelings are taken seriously. Their disappearance is discovered quickly, and the island mobilizes: Scout Master Ward, the local police captain, Suzy's parents, and a succession of officious adults converge to restore order.
The search becomes a tableau of comic miscommunication and genuine tenderness. Captain Sharp grows unexpectedly sympathetic toward Sam, while Scout Master Ward is at once rigid and humane, trying to reconcile rules with the moral urgency of protecting children. A brewing New England storm escalates the stakes, forcing characters into decisive, sometimes dangerous acts that test loyalties and expose hidden compassion. The run ultimately provokes a confrontation between the world the children are trying to escape and the world that is struggling, imperfectly, to respond.

Main Characters
Suzy is fiercely literate, imaginative, and determined, wielding books and a pair of binoculars as both armor and map. Sam is streetwise in a shy, earnest way, having learned to fend for himself through cleverness and an almost military discipline picked up in Scouting. Their chemistry is quiet and intense, rooted in shared feelings of exile and longing for rescue.
Among the adults, Captain Sharp and Scout Master Ward represent contrasting types of guardianship: one official, sometimes bumbling, the other attempting to impose structure while learning to listen. Suzy's parents embody the strains of adult marriage and suburban disaffection, and the arrival of Social Services underscores bureaucracy's attempt to adjudicate childhood. The ensemble's reactions reveal both comic absurdity and a surprising tenderness toward the runaways.

Tone and Style
Signature Wes Anderson stylings permeate the screenplay's rhythm and imagery: deadpan dialogue, precise visual tableaux, and a retro color palette that turns the island into a storybook stage. The narrative voice mixes whimsical narration with pointed, melancholy details, creating a fairytale-like atmosphere that is nevertheless tethered to emotional realism. Musical choices and carefully constructed set pieces heighten the sense of a bygone, idealized America while also undercutting it with small, sharp human failures.
The comedy is character-driven rather than gag-based, and sentiment is handled with an oblique, stylistic grace that keeps the story touching without tipping into mawkishness. Scenes are often composed as miniature vignettes, each one revealing a facet of longing, misunderstanding, or quiet bravery.

Themes and Resonance
Moonrise Kingdom explores the ache of growing up, the yearning for belonging, and the ways adults project their own disappointments onto children. It juxtaposes the purity and intensity of first love with the clumsy, defensive mechanisms of adulthood. Community, shown as both a constraining social order and a surprisingly compassionate rescue network, emerges as a central concern.
Ultimately the screenplay celebrates small acts of care and the stubborn endurance of youthful hope. The story's bittersweet conclusion suggests that while systems may fail, human tenderness, awkward, imperfect, and often comic, can create moments of real rescue and possibility.