The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

My first experience with Wes Anderson was "The Royal Tennebaums", I didn't finish it but I don't think I was watching it with the right person, let's just put it that way: my buddy and me were staring at the screen exactly like Wes Anderson's usual characters, which isn't a good thing. And I guess I wasn't in much a demand for sophisticated humor at that particular phase of my life. I still have to watch the film though. My second experience was "Grand Budapest Hotel", I didn't like it the first time. I loved it the second. All it took was to understand Wes Anderson's personal approach to film-making and the way he took style rather as an end than a mean, somewhat reaching more genuine truths than conventional dramas or just making fabulously entertaining movies. I took it that it took a special gourmet taste to savor his films and the next two discoveries didn't break the streak of enjoyment.So I loved "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and I loved "Moonrise Kingdom". And I kept waiting for the one movie where Bill Murray would finally have a leading role. The film was "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou", whose poster looked like a very promising take on classic documentary "The World of Silence" with Commandant Cousteau (Zissou wears the same trademark red cap). I expected a lot of beautiful shots, a lot of laughs no matter the facial expression on Bill Murray's face, I expected a lot of good things. "Moonrise Kingdom" had alerted me that Anderson, like Harold Ramis and Sofia Coppola was the kind of privileged director who'd "understood" Bill Murray, but not at the expenses of our understanding.Indeed, for some reason, and despite a terrific set-up, I had a déjà vu with this film. It felt like my first experience with "Tennenbaum" (and now, you know why I had to write with this lengthy introduction). Unless I was mislead about the film, I thought there would be something passionate about Zissou, or at least, in his Melvillian relationship with the jaguar-shark who ate (even chewed) his first mate Esteban. I know, Bill Murray, tongue-in-cheek, snarky, deadpan humor and so on… No problem with that, but it seemed like there was no moment whatsoever where Zissou could actually be seen enjoying anything.There were some outbursts of violence and emotions and I was waiting for genuine reactions like his fatherly anger when his supposed son gets punched in the face by a group of hijackers, but overall, the film played like a series of set-ups for hilarious situations with downer conclusions. It's a comedy drama but I wonder why Anderson ever invested in the comedic element since he never really bring much fun to the screen except for a few chuckles in the middle of some existential contemplation.The film had them all, Bill Murray could have played the role of a lifetime just one year after his great performance in "Lost in Translation" but in Coppola's film, we could identify the roots of Bob's melancholy and his brief moments of happiness provided the little zest without which the film would have felt pretty bland. That "Zissou" story had like ten characters as "lost in translation" as Zissou himself, a malcontent wife played by Anjelica Huston, a frustrated and envious first mate played by Willem Dafoe, a number one fan of Zissou who believe he might be Zissou's son, and played by Owen Wilson.There's also Cate Blanchett who's probably trying to break her 'Elizabeth" image and have a hip comedic role with a trendy director for a change. It would work better with Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine". And Jeff Goldblum is a pedant, gay and condescending oceanographer named Hennessy, he's supposed to be Zissou's nemesis, he's more like an alter-ego in a film that becomes like an oddball contest, which is fine in a "Grand Budapest Hotel" kind of plot, but not quite this time.The film doesn't even trust the initial premise with the jaguar shark, it involves a series of hijacking, assaults, accidents, but we never really get a clear idea of where this is going anyway.Don't get me wrong, "Life Aquatic" looks great, the script is full of one liners and the actors are all talented, but they don't seem to be really playing their roles as if the story mattered anyway, maybe Owen Wilson is the most emotionally engaging and so is Willem Defoe but the others were too estranged to us to let any specific feeling unfold. And for some reason, with the story of the eaten friend, and the possible father-and-son relationship, there's never a moment where Wes Anderson tries to get conventional a little for the sake of emotions. In fact, Anderson ever seems to despise emotions, a symptom that thankfully didn't affect "Moonrise Kingdom".There's some interesting self-referential approach when Zissou considers the possibility of a relationship subplot in the film because he's got great chemistry with his son, but it's like Anderson was trying to keep this as fake as possible as a defensive move, as if he didn't want to surrender to some corny conventional-ism typical of Hollywood, by doing so, he might have deprived the film from what could have been the emotional core behind the laughs. Just because Murray isn't a man of emotions, doesn't make him emotionless. Anyway, it all comes down to this: I think the story deserves a 6 for the wasted potential, but I can't get past how beautiful some shots look, so I'll give it a 7. Not that the rating matters anyway.

Hi, I haven't read this theory anywhere before, but...Final scene in the credits: the party of people walk onto the boat. On top of the boat a guy in uniform seems to be smoking a pipe.What if it's Ned? They were filming a movie after all. Perhaps they filmed a burial at sea for dramatic effect?

Bill Murray, bearded in a red knit beanie, plays a low-keyed, yet fiercely determined oceanographer--a sort of second-runner to Jacques Cousteau--who has assembled a motley crew of adventurers to document his vengeful destruction of a Jaguar shark; complicating the scenario is the appearance of a southern airline pilot who believes himself to be the oceanographer's long-lost biological son. Another dry, quirky comedy-drama of odd human attributes from writer-director Wes Anderson; impeccably crafted and produced, but not always so interesting or likable. A great deal of the film's effectiveness rests on Murray's scratchy, irascible presence, yet his Steve Zissou often acts like a jerk, which undermines the proceedings with a sour tone that I'm not sure is entirely unintentional. Anderson's strengths as a filmmaker are apparent: he has an artist's eye, a talent for visceral detail which sometimes takes the viewer's breath away. However, his desire to punch up the character-driven material with mechanical action backfires (one may initially presume the hijackers episode is a fantasy of Zissou's), as does the mercurial but underwritten relationships between the men and women in the movie. The eclectic soundtrack--an Anderson staple--is lovingly filled with David Bowie songs (originals and those interpreted in Portuguese by Seu Jorge), while the look of the picture is both theatrical and vivid. Overall, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" is about as unwieldy as its title--which surely hurt the film at the box-office--and not one of Anderson's watermark films, yet it features moments of beauty and emotion which make it worth-seeing for the filmmaker's admirers. ** from ****

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is written, directed and produced by Wes Anderson. It tells the story of an oceanographer trying to get revenge on a shark after it ate his best friend. And for the most part, I really liked the Life Aquatic. Anderson's style resonates throughout the film: it's silly, goofy and bright. Some of it doesn't really make sense, but it's established by the tone of the film that that doesn't really matter. The cast is great: Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum and others. Almost everyone is great, especially Murray with his sarcastic humor that never gets old and Goldblum with his eccentric antics. For me though, hat's off for Willem Dafoe. He stole every scene he was in as the German engineer. He was so funny and just great. I have to say I did not like Owen Wilson in this, at all. He plays this pilot from Kentucky, which is fine as a character, but the problem is I didn't see the character in the movie, I just saw Owen Wilson trying to do a terrible accent. Either cast someone else or don't have Wilson's character be from Kentucky.Also, for me the movie is at its best when it's silly and joyful, but the movie does fall back to melancholy and drama at times and that for me didn't really work that well in this type of film after the tone of silliness was established.However, overall The Life Aquatic is a very good movie, with great set designs and characters and great silly creatures and props. Things you don't see a lot in movies anymore and I really appreciate those kinds of things. You can tell a lot of heart went into doing this and I love that. The Life Aquatic is one of a kind and although it may get tedious at times, it's still a project that was made with a lot of love and creativity, so I respect it for that.7.5/10