Director Wes Anderson revisits the concept of family in latest offering 'Moonrise Kingdom'

When Wes Anderson was growing up in Texas, he came across a pamphlet on the refrigerator in his family's kitchen. It was titled Coping With the Very Troubled Child. Anderson knew it was meant for him. "It was not a great feeling," he recalls of the shock. "I wasn't the only child in the house, but I knew which one was the very troubled child. And I think if my brothers [Eric and Mel] had found it they would not have looked to themselves."

Years later, the scars may not be visible, but the writer-director behind Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums evidently still carries those memories. In what might be a tiny act of catharsis, the incident has found its way into his new film, Moonrise Kingdom, a 1965-set comedic drama that plays out in a small, isolated Rhode Island community. "Practically everything, in my experience of making a movie," Anderson says, "comes from somewhere in life, from some person who inspired something or some little memory."

His body of work is flush with autobiographical details. His mother was an archaeologist, just like Anjelica Huston's matriarch in The Royal Tenenbaums, while his boyhood fascination with Jacques Cousteau inspired The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. But the pattern always circles back to family - and Moonrise Kingdom is no exception. From the rag-tag friends in his 1996 debut Bottle Rocket to the furry clan in the animated Fantastic Mr Fox, Anderson's all about our need for family, surrogate or otherwise, even when they find you troublesome.

In the absence of his own family, Moonrise's orphan hero - 12-year-old Boy Scout Sam (Jared Gilman) - goes searching for first love. The erudite Sam convinces local girl Suzy (Kara Hayward) to run away with him. They get as far as the woods, but nevertheless cause consternation for her parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), the local sheriff (Bruce Willis) and Sam's scout master (Edward Norton).

Anderson credits his young characters with taste, intelligence and maturity. "I kind of feel they're equal [to their elders]," he says. "The children in this story are the ones that know what they want, more than the adults. They're maybe a little more efficient in getting what they're after."

Dressed in a brown corduroy suit, and carrying a folded-up newspaper in his pocket, the 43-year-old Anderson doesn't exactly look in touch with his inner child. But he promises that it was his memories "of feeling like you've fallen in love at that age" that inspired what he labels "a pretty sad comedy". So is it a wistful lament for those pre-pubescent days of innocence? He says not. "It's not like I feel like I was happier as a child. I feel happier making movies than I ever did going to school."

If Anderson's films are thematic explorations of family, his productions are practical attempts to replicate that support network a family gives. Frequently drawing from the same pool of actors (this is his sixth film of seven with Murray), he also likes to team up with writers - this time bringing in Roman Coppola (the son of Francis Ford and the co-writer) and Jason Schwartzman, of 2007 India-set travelogue The Darjeeling Limited).