MOONRISE KINGDOM (PG-13) Ex-Khaki Scout and orphan Sam (Jared Gilman) runs away into the wilderness with his sweetheart Suzy (Kara Hayward) on the island of New Penzance. Incompetent Scout Master Randy (Edward Norton) sends his troop to find the boy, while Suzy's parents (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand) fret waiting for the local cop, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), to find their troubled daughter. Meanwhile, a powerful storm rages on toward this idyllic island.

Director Wes Anderson is arguably the most distinctive and refined American director of his generation. He's long filled his movies with damaged characters. Underneath the meticulously designed artifice and eccentric humor, pain and loss have always simmered. Here, Anderson cranks the emotional dial while maintaining his delicacy and lightness of touch. This isn't easy considering Anderson and his co-screenwriter Roman Coppola are telling a story of young romance. Emotions are pitched at such an intense level at that age, and the subtlest of gestures is likely to send them into an emotive whirlwind.

Anderson convincingly captures the hurly-burly of young love, but he also conveys the sense of adventure of being a 12-year-old. Sam and Suzy are introspective kids. Sam is disliked by his fellow scouts, and his guardians at the orphanage have no interest in his welfare. He's resourceful and fearless, however, and he engages with Suzy in such a straightforward manner it's startling. Suzy is intelligent and creative as well, but her petulance sometimes masks her more engaging qualities, at least as far as her parents are concerned. Sam sees her with different eyes, though, and their relationship is free of guile or pretension. They fearlessly plunge into it like little explorers, never really knowing where they'll end up, trusting that the destination will be worth it because they have each other.

Anderson's longtime cinematographer Robert Yeoman casts Moonrise Kingdom in that late afternoon haze that feels like it will never end. But darkness is encroaching, and no love story worth remembering is free from that threat. Anderson is maturing as a filmmaker, and his emotional range has deepened. For all of his attention to surface style (the movie feels like a live-action cartoon), he never loses sight of his characters' humanity, never fusses over them so much that they become unrecognizable. Anderson may craft Moonrise Kingdom with the fussiness of an illustrator with a gift for fine lines and orderliness, but he knows to color outside the lines when it's needed the most.