The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

This Wes Anderson movie is very quirky but fans of Wes Anderson will not be disappointed. The movie is part a loving parody of Jacques Cousteau, part character study, with a lot of wit and understated acting. Beautifully shot, it is more complex and straightforward than some other Anderson movies, but still has a mesmerizing effect and grows on you upon repeated viewings. Justifiably a cult classic, it is perhaps not the best of Wes Anderson movies, but it is not the worst either, despite unjustly being panned by critics. If you have a functioning brain, give it a try.

I find this a hard movie to rate. Maybe a second viewing would make it easier. It's a odd film: one of these low-key black humor films which is a mixture of drama and comedy. What set this apart were a few other shocking scenes of violence, something not normally in this type of movie. For a comedy, albeit a tongue-in-cheek one, that violence doesn't seem to fit, but it makes the film all the more intriguing.

At times I was totally bored with this movie and at other times fascinated. I know one thing: this is a bizarre story! That automatically means it's a good vehicle for Bill Murray, who excels at wacky characters, event he low-key ones as he sometimes plays (i.e. Lost In Translation, The Royal Tenebaums, etc.). Speaker of the latter, this movie was written and directed by Wes Anderson, the same man who did "Tenenbaums." If you saw that, you have an idea of what you might get here, although I thought Royal Tenenbaums was far funnier.

At 118 minutes, this a bit long for what it offers. I'd like to have seen it 15 minutes shorter with a tighter script. But it does offer some good photography in addition to the strange story. This movie, as they say, is not for all tastes.

"Life Aquatic" may best be described by the term the critic Ebert gave it, "terminal whimsy." There is a story but, as the writer/director says on the DVD extras, the characters are what count. They are interesting, but it is mostly all silliness, which I got tired of pretty quickly. As did my wife. We also didn't care much for "Royal Tennenbaums", another whimsical Anderson film. The only movie of his I have enjoyed, so far, is "Rushmore" which has more substance.

In a parody of Jacques Cousteau, Bill Murray is good as Steve Zissou, famous explorer who seems more interested in filming something that will sell, than in making legitimate discoveries. Owen Wilson is Ned Plimpton, who shows up after his mother dies, looking for Zissou who may be his father. Cate Blanchett is a reporter, and pregnant, Jane Winslett-Richardson, who goes along on the next adventure intent on documenting it, but also becoming attracted to Ned. Anjelica Huston is Steve's ex-wife, Eleanor Zissou, looking her mannish best. Willem Dafoe is a hoot as Klaus Daimler, and Jeff Goldblum, always good, is Alistair Hennessey, competing and wealthy aquatic explorer.

SPOILERS. The movie begins at a showing of the latest Zissou film where the theater audience finds out Steve's buddy was eaten by what he calls a Leopard Shark, and his next mission is to hunt it down. So that is what most of this movie is about. There are mishaps, but in the end the small sub with "maximum capacity 6 people" is tracking the shark with a dozen people in it. They find the man-eating shark, it is beautiful, they do not kill it. Terminal whimsy. For those who love it, I congratulate you.

I'm not generally a fan of Wes Anderson. He relies too heavily on the charm of detachment. Burton has this problem too, hidden under the humorous tone. The appeal is a generational thing and I guess I'm too old to simply find that enough.

But here, he does something different than what I have seen elsewhere from him. I think it is because the Owen influence is small here. The form is a movie about making a life which is a movie. Both the movie and the movie within have fantastic elements, but we do have a clear shift to brighter colors and crisper landscapes when within the inner world.

Its all based on synthetic notions of drama: love, purpose, worth. When you sneak up on things this way, you have to play a delicate game, one I think Wes usually flubs. You have to engage by setting a distance that is far enough from the norm that we as viewers can lean into it, and near enough to what we think of as real flesh that we want to.

Bill Murray doesn't understand this balance, because he's all about distance. Never mind, he's just an actor. So you select actors that try for the closeness. Dafoe and Blanchett get this. What they choose to do is simple: they form a real person and layer some cartoonish mannerisms on top. We see through the play and value the real underneath, where we cannot with Murray and Wilson.

Because the whole thing can blend together, we get a wonderful balance of this tension: engagement and studied apartness. I credit Anderson with maintaining this container. It works. And it works because he was smart. You can see that he understands this dynamic well enough to know that we will be impatient with his tricks for very long. So the movie changes tone as it moves along. It changes slowly with less emphasis on the personal abstraction and more on abstracting the physical: the ship, the rooms, beds, sub. It allows Cate to present her womb, which is quite a miracle.

If you read the trivia at IMDb, you find that many top actresses wanted this part. So it is pretty amazing that Cate's condition as a pregnant woman who knows how to turn herself inside out was able to have that condition become so central to the world we see.

This isn't quirky. This isn't comedy. This is extremely sensitive positioning of the audience to allow for deeper penetration. Its a triangulation of "Incident at Loch Ness" and "Cowards Bend the Knee ."

I felt blessed watching it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

What a stunning body of work Wes Anderson has created. I will be honest, when I first saw the previews to this film I was worried that Anderson may have gone the way of so many other directors who have developed their name in Hollywood. Art is replaced by money, which is replaced by angry fans. I saw the CGI fish and began to feel a sweat break with nervousness. Will he be able to continue the humor from Bottle Rocket, the darkness of Rushmore, as well as the ensemble connectedness from The Royal Tennanbaums? Well, folks, I am here to announce that he has taken the Hollywood money and has not veered too far off his signature course. I always imagine Anderson's work as a very dry martini. His humor, the most intelligent work I have seen in a long time, is like the liquid itself, creating this bold texture while packing a powerful emotional punch. The olives are the cast, giving just some extra to nibble on while you enjoy the entire drink. Place these elements together, the drink and olives, and you have The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

To begin with, this film would not have worked without anyone else in the lead than Bill Murray. His ability to contain himself while also giving us the emotional stress of being a first-time dad as well as loosing his best friend is Oscar worthy. He is the perfect guide for our trip, giving us that knowledgeable laugh as well as those sympathetic eyes that seem to shout, "Everything will work out". He is bold and smooth as both the Captain of the vessel as well as learning the tricks of being a father. His ability to deliver his lines was both crucial and beautifully timed giving us just enough to make us fall in love with him by the end of the film. Coupled with his amazing performances is the work of everyone else involved. Willem Dafoe proves that he can handle any role, big or small, and make it very memorable. My favorite character during this voyage was Cate Blanchett's role that nearly stole the show from Murray. Her multi-depth character gave us just the distraction that we needed to see the power of the father/son relationship. Her quirks take us deep into the human soul and give us a mother's perspective to this mission. It is a beautiful counter to Murray's passive/aggressive father figure. Goldblum is quickly becoming a favorite actor of mine, while Huston proves that she still has the ability inside of her. Both of these guys need to see more work. The rest of the eclectic cast ranges from the hilarious "interns" to the melancholy songs of David Bowie (see if you can spot them!). Even Noah Taylor (of Vanilla Sky fame) turned out a stunning performance. The cast shines through beautifully, playing off each other, giving us some of the best performances of the year.

I will admit, Anderson's comic narrative will leave this dry taste in your mouth, but for me it was a great experience. His humor is dry, his films are dry, but that is what makes him different than others in his field. He gives us those long pauses and obscure references that will either force you to think or create frustration because you do not understand his meaning. I have grown up on his films since seeing Bottle Rocket, and I love the way this man creates. One of my favorite lines and scenes in this film that I have raved to everyone as the epitome of an Anderson film was when Zissou first takes Ned to the island and Eleanor tells Steve that one of his cats died. After some banter, Ned asks what type of cat it was. Zissou replies "Who cares. A tabby I think…" which isn't funny at first, but then you realize that all he has on the island are Siamese cats, which only make me laugh harder in my seat. That is Wes Anderson humor, and it works perfectly for me. His ability to create these challenging characters and put them in situations that I never saw coming (the "pirates" scene being one of them) was outstanding. It felt as if he was throwing his crew into different troubles daily who in turn produced some of the best work ever. Only Wes Anderson could create beauty out of chaos.

My fear of the CGI was muted immediately when I saw that Anderson used the technique to create some of the most imaginative creatures ever to lurk in the sea impressed me. He didn't use it as a central focus of the film (until the end), and used it sporadically so that it really didn't feel as if it was being used. The creatures that he created are so bold and colorful that skillfully he uses them to counter the life of Zissou, which seems be getting darker by the day. This contrast allowed me to see deeper into Murray's character and root for his misadventures throughout the entire film.

Overall, I was very impressed. I know that not many enjoyed this picture as much as his previous works, but for me it was a fresh chapter with a stellar cast. Anderson is slowly changing the face of cinema, and soon others will follow trying to recreate his award winning voice, but will not succeed. This man is in the same boat as Gondry, Coppola, Jonez, and Kaufman. These are the imaginative thinkers of Hollywood that continually break the mold and open the doors to new possibilities.

Grade: ***** out of *****