2012 Muriels: Best Ensemble

Last of the secondary awards! Next week, we start running down the big categories, culminating in the epic Best Film Countdown. But that's not to say we don't enjoy these other categories. I think we got a pretty solid spread on this category in particular.

Third place:



Django Unchained [116 points / 19 votes]

Second place:



Lincoln [148 points / 24 votes]

And your winner...




Moonrise Kingdom [197 points / 29 votes]

"As with any director with an immediately identifiable style, it’s easy, when discussing Wes Anderson, to focus almost exclusively on his visuals. So much of the humor and expressive force of Anderson’s films depends on their formal aspects -- the playhouse sets, the elaborately choreographed tracking shots, the symmetrical compositions, the obsessively detailed production design -- that one can forget Wes-world contains actual people.

Of course, Anderson’s detractors would argue that it doesn’t, in fact, contain human beings at all, just soulless wax toys for Anderson to move around his dollhouse. I’ve always thought that criticism was bullshit, frankly, and for the viewers who still believe it after Moonrise Kingdom, well... I’m just not sure what movie they saw. The emotional structure of the film, its juxtaposition between youthful romance and adult disappointments resolving into an ecstatic-melancholy combination of both, depends in no small part on the actors in Anderson’s troop. And while Moonrise Kingdom features fine work from a few of Anderson’s regulars -- weary Bill Murray, wisecracking Jason Schwartzman -- it’s the newcomers who ultimately make the strongest impression. This begins with the two kids Anderson found for his leads, neither of whom had any previous acting experience. Jared Gilman is striking and endearingly odd, if admittedly a bit green. But Kara Hayward, the Bonnie to Gilman’s pint-sized Clyde, is a marvel, nailing the mix of hopeful yearning and genuine emotional damage that is central to the film (and which will make her an instant crush-object for any teenage male viewers). She’s a movie star and, with apologies to my fellow Muriels voters and no insult to the remarkable Quvenzhané Wallis, the true child-star revelation of 2012.

Then there’s Edward Norton and Bruce Willis, new but perfect additions to the Wes Anderson Players. Both are quintessential Anderson males -- Norton the heartbreakingly earnest Scoutmaster, Willis the goodhearted “sad, dumb policeman” -- and both actors turn in their best work in ages. Willis in particular may never have been better, wearing the soulful weight of his age for perhaps the first time. It’s beautiful work, and I hope this film brings him the type of roles that Rushmore brought Murray.

And then there’s Frances McDormand as Murray’s flinty, lonely wife. And then there’s Tilda Swinton as the hilariously inhuman Child Services. And then there’s Bob Balaban, the sort-of narrator and master of ceremonies. And then there are the bit-players and extras, all carefully selected and all perfectly attuned to the emotional and visual world they inhabit. Are these people dolls? I don’t think so. But even if I’m wrong, what marvelous, amusing, sad, beautiful dolls they are." - Matt Noller

See the full results.