Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 18/20)
Plot: The titular pop oceanographer barely raises enough money to venture out and make a sequel to the documentary in which his friend and long-time collaborator was eaten by a shark that may or may not exist. Zissou deals with his fading popularity, his possible son who tags along for the adventure, a cute and pregnant magazine writer, and a variety of obstacles that threaten to derail production.
Bill Murray fans--here's your chance to see Bill without a shirt. Murray's the sun for the solar system of this movie. A lot of the humor with his character is the writing, but any future comedy mega-superstars need to look here for a course on comic timing and deadpan perfection. Check the scene where he answers the question about the purpose for killing the shark or the little pause and lean-back before he engages in fisticuffs with a heckler or his "OK, man" answer to Ned's introduction of himself. In Will Ferrell's hands, this character would be lost, drifting through an insipid ocean of slapstick and pointless screaming. In Murray's hands, the character is still lost, but he's lost in this existential funk, in his malaise, in his truths and consequences, and in the chore of being human. And yes, I realize how pretentious that might sound, but if you're going to write about why you like a Wes Anderson movie, you better be prepared to go full hipster or not go at all, right? I've watched this little character study more than any other Wes Anderson movie, I think, probably because I think it's his funniest. Still, I've not been able to put my finger on what it's about exactly. There's a lot of playing around with reality vs. this manufactured reality. You get the documentary footage, all scratchily authentic, and it's so obviously staged that you start to pick out scenes with Steve and his maybe-son Ned that also have to be staged. And then you wonder how much of the action sequences that go unapologetically over-the-top are actually real. And you wonder if all those sea creatures Henry Selick animated are real or imagined or both. I fooled myself into believing that the scenes that are showing Zissou's real emotions and the scenes where he's hamming it up for an audience--call it the real Steve and the documentary Steve--are actually filmed differently, framed in unnaturally stiff and more naturally free ways respectively. Of course, I could just be making that up. Either way, I do know that the big payoff, the scene with all the characters humorously crammed into that tiny yellow submarine, is definitely real, and Bill Murray's "I wonder if it remembers me" really touches me and just might be his finest acting moment. No, wait. Let me take that back immediately after I typed it. Murray's finest acting moment is after he explains how their helmets played music to Cate Blanchett's character and then demonstrated with a little dance. If Murray's the sun, all that orbits around him is about perfect in this. Anderson's usual attention to detail gives us Steve Zissou and crew action figures (which, I believe, I hadn't noticed before), plenty of beautiful sea life including a Crayon Ponyfish and this lovely scene that mixes the pink of fish with the blue of the water--two colors that probably should never ever be seen together like that, all those wonderful Bowie songs performed in Portugeuse by Seu Jorge, a three-legged dog, an acrobatic whale. And speaking of acrobatic, how about the way the camera maneuvers during the scene that gives a tour of the Zissou boat and then later during the scene where they steal from Goldblum's sea lab? Those are both so perfectly orchestrated that it makes my nipples hard just thinking about them. The periphery characters and the actors who portray them are so perfect, too. Willem Dafoe wouldn't necessarily be my first choice to play a needy German, but he's hilarious here. Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Michael Gambon, Jeff Goldblum--all perfectly cast. And I had to give this a bonus point for Bud Cort, and his little smile after they do that little hands-in-the-middle teamwork thing in an elevator has got to be one of my favorite movie smiles ever. But then I had to take the bonus point away because Kumar Pallana isn't in this movie. One more thing--I've always wondered if the beginning scenes at the screening of Part One of the latest Zissou documentary with the ornate theater and the terrific Mark Mothersbaugh music and the giant painting and the way the shots are framed was a nod to Peter Greenaway. It makes me laugh to think about all that formality leading to a guy in overalls coming to grab the microphone from the stage.
Note: I just checked the rulebook, and I am not allowed to take away a bonus point just because Kumar Pallana isn't in a movie.
Note: I just checked the rulebook, and I am not allowed to take away a bonus point just because Kumar Pallana isn't in a movie.
9 comments:
I found this to be one of Andersons less enjoyable films. Its so over the top with quirkiness that you almost forget that the plot is wafer thin.
I give it a 13....just enough to give it a passing grade based solely on the charms of Bill Murray.
I'd agree with the quirkiness although I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I don't see why you'd consider the plot "wafer thin" though.
It is wafer thin. You have the odd Owen Wilson thing, is he or is he not Murrays son?....and thats about it. Some funny looking fake fish, and an out of place pirate activity, and there is your movie. There is nothing resembling anything like a plot or a purpose. Why are we looking into this story? Where is that story? And when a movie is based entirely on quirkiness, as this one is, it becomes a bad thing. Anderson tread this same line with The Royal Tannenbaums, except in it he had the more stable center of Gene Hackman to work off of. I am a huge Bill Murray fan, but there is nothing in this film for him to work with.
I'd be more willing to agree with you if you said there was too much plot.
The "odd Owen Wilson thing"? It doesn't matter if he's Zissou's son or not. He's not, by the way, since Huston establishes that Zissou can't have children. The relationship they build and that Zissou quite can't build correctly and that sense of Zissou, at this stage in his life, seeing in Owen Wilson something that he has lost, something he's completely missed out on. There's more depth there than you think there is...
The fake looking fish and the pirate activity are detours. You're not remembering the main plot/conflict of the movie and a few interesting subplots though. The main plot is one of revenge. He wants to track down this shark that killed his friend. Of course, it's all symbolic anyway and neither the shark or his friend really matter all that much, but that's still the main plot of the movie.
There's also some romantic subplots. There's the Blanchett character who again sort of represents some part of Zissou's life that has passed him by. And there still seems to be something with Huston, his ex-wife.
This is a character study. It's an investigation of a flawed man who, at the very end of his career, is learning from his mistakes a little too late. So yes, I think it does have just as much of a stable center as Tenenbaums. The comedy and characters are quirky, sure. But I don't think you can say it's plotless because there's a story there. It even has a nice ending that even you, hater of 'A Serious Man,' can appreciate. And pointless? I think the quirkiness and those detours might have put such a bad taste in your mouth that you lost interest and missed any points it might have had. I don't think it's fair to say that the movie is "based entirely on quirkiness" though.
The pirate activity...that scene seems so out of place. Is it even real? Is that in there to show us what Murray's character wants to be? It is a strange scene.
While I appreciate how much you like this, I agree with Barry that there is not much here to merit more than a decent grade (15 for me). As always, Murray is a comic God, but the rest of the film rests its hat on mildly funny quirkiness that sometimes goes too far. There are chuckles but no real laughs, odd characters that are fun to watch but no need to pull for, and there is no emotional depth. Besides the great "Fantastic Mr. Fox", Anderson is a niche filmmaker that doesn't seem to really care about anything, and that makes it hard to care about his movies.
This is the only movie that Wes Anderson has made that has a negative rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Take that for whatever you want.
His highest is 'Moonrise Kingdom' with a whopping 94%, and I'd almost be willing to bet that you would like it less than you liked 'The Life Aquatic'...
I just looked at some of those critical blurbs...movie critics kind of make me sick. If I ever start to resemble one, tell me so that I can shut down this blog.
The more I think about it...well, with Wes Anderson, you either have to accept this world and the quirky characters in it and kind of go with his flow or you don't. These movies aren't the kind of movies where I think "I'm right and everybody who disagrees with me is wrong" though (like 'Eraserhead' or 'Convoy')...as we've established, comedy is subjective. I think Wes Anderson movies are hilarious, and the tone of the movies just make me feel good inside. But I can definitely see why they don't work for a lot of people.
I know Wes Anderson fans who don't like this movie. Kairow, who I don't think reads this blog anymore, is one of them.
I have found that I like most Anderson films, even if his overall sameness of tone and look in his films gets on my nerves. The Life Aquatic is just the weakest of his films, (for me) with the possible exception of The Darjeeling Limited.
I genuinely enjoyed Rushmore, the Royal Tanennbaums and I think that I like The Fantastic Mr Fox more than anyone else who has ever read this blog. So its not so much a distaste for Anderson, rather than feeling this film is just flimsy. I am going to have to see this Moonlight thing, just to see how it compares for me. It will be an interesting psychological experiment.
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