Largely set on the fictional island of New Penzance somewhere off the coast of New England, it tells the story of an orphan boy (Gilman) who escapes from a scouting camp to unite with his pen pal and love interest, a girl with aggressive tendencies (Hayward).

Moonrise Kingdom premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and received critical acclaim, with its themes of young love, child sexuality, juvenile mental health, and the Genesis flood narrative being praised.

Critics cited the film's color palette and use of visual symmetry as well as the use of original composition by Alexandre Desplat to supplement existing music by Benjamin Britten.

Ben works at Fort Lebanon, a larger Khaki Scout summer camp on St. Jack Wood Island run by Ward's superior, Commander Pierce.

[9] While preparing the script Anderson also viewed films about young love for inspiration, including Black Jack, Small Change, A Little Romance and Melody.

[16] While Anderson said that he wrote the part of Captain Sharp imagining the deceased James Stewart playing him, he thought Willis could be the "iconic policeman" once the screenplay was completed.

"[20] In addition to the books and maps, Anderson said the crew spent a substantial amount of time creating the watercolor paintings, needle-points and other original props.

[20] Anderson used Google Earth for initial location scouting, searching for places where they could find Suzy's house and "naked wildlife", considering Canada, Michigan and New England.

[21] Cinematographer Robert Yeoman shot the film on Super 16mm with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, as opposed to Anderson's usual 35mm anamorphic format, using Aaton Xterà and A-Minima cameras.

[34] Academic Timothy Shary placed the story in the cinematic tradition of exploring "young romance" and the resulting strife, with Titanic (1997) and Boys Don't Cry (1999).

She argued the severity of Sam and Suzy's behavior, and their "profound existential anxiety", indicate the characters were created as products of a more widespread concern for juvenile mental health.

Wilkins wrote that the story dealt with "existential" questions, with the two young protagonists rejected by society and allying to escape to "a limited existence beyond its boundaries".

[36] According to a Chicago Tribune analysis, Moonrise Kingdom represented Anderson's most focused study on a theme running through his work, "the feelings of misunderstood, unconventional children".

[38] Critic Geoffrey O'Brien wrote that, while camps are common settings for stories about "innocence" lost, the truer theme was "the awakening of the first radiance of mature intelligence in a world liable to be indifferent or hostile to it".

[42] Academic James MacDowell evaluated the film's style as displaying "the director's trademark flat, symmetrical, tableau framings of carefully arranged characters within colorful, fastidiously decorated sets" with "patent unnaturalism and self-consciousness".

"[46] Critic Robbie Collin added that besides the symmetry, many shots are "busy with detail, and if something visually dull has to happen, Anderson embellishes it: when Sam and Suzy retreat to have a quiet heart-to-heart, he places their silent conversation on the left hand side of the frame and an enthusiastic young trampolinist on the right".

[47] Roger Ebert identified the color scheme as emphasizing green in the grass, khaki in the Scouts camp and uniforms, and some red, creating "the feeling of magical realism".

[48] Scholar Nicolas Llano Linares wrote that Anderson's films are "distinctively andersonian to the limit", "filled with ornate elements that create particular worlds that define the tone of the story, the visual and material dimensions of his sets".

[49] Macdowell pointed to the characters' books and the production of Noye's Fludde as examples of the "indulgent, excessive, yet attractive neatness" that children in Anderson's films enjoy.

[45] In the scene where the Khaki Scouts meet with Cousin Ben, writer Michael Frierson observed how the tracking shot is combined with "clipped, military dialogue".

[53] The film's final credits feature a deconstructed rendition of Desplat's original soundtrack in the style of English composer Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide, accompanied by a child's voice to introduce each instrumental section.

[55] With many Britten tracks taken from recordings conducted or supervised by the composer himself, the music includes The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Introduction/Theme; Fugue), conducted by Leonard Bernstein; Friday Afternoons ("Cuckoo"; "Old Abram Brown"); Simple Symphony ("Playful Pizzicato"); Noye's Fludde (various excerpts, including the processions of animals into and out of the ark, and "The spacious firmament on high"); and A Midsummer Night's Dream ("On the ground, sleep sound").

[56] Also featured are extracts from Saint-Saëns's Le Carnaval des animaux, Franz Schubert's "An die Musik", Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Così fan tutte and tracks by Hank Williams.

The consensus states, "Warm, whimsical, and poignant, the immaculately framed and beautifully acted Moonrise Kingdom presents writer/director Wes Anderson at his idiosyncratic best.

[48] A devoted fan of Anderson, Richard Brody hailed Moonrise Kingdom as "a leap ahead, artistically and personally" for the director, for its "expressly transcendent theme" and its spiritual references to Noah's Ark.

[73] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film four stars out of five, calling it "another sprightly confection of oddities, attractively eccentric, witty and strangely clothed".

[74] The New York Times's Manohla Dargis reviewed Anderson and Coppola's screenplay as a "beautifully coordinated admixture of droll humor, deadpan and slapstick".

[79] Christopher Orr of The Atlantic wrote that Moonrise Kingdom was "Anderson's best live-action feature" and that it "captures the texture of childhood summers, the sense of having a limited amount of time in which to do unlimited things".

[96] Reviewing the scene where the characters dance wearing only their underwear, the Catholic News Service stated "The interlude doesn't quite cross over into the full-blown exploitation of children, but it teeters on that edge".

Crouch said that in the theater where he saw the film, "the shot showing the dog impaled and inert elicited a shocked, yelping exhale from many people in the audience", and he observed outrage on Twitter.