The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Directed by Wes Anderson
Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned, a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane, a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou's past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor.
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What critics compared The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou to
Even when he unveils the Brown household in a dollhouse-like manner that recalls similar gags in Jerry Lewis's The Ladies Man and Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou , Paddington recalls its stylistic forbears at their best: flowing with whimsy, but never at the expense of the beating heart of its human (and animal) characters.
…has been more movingly dramatized in the likes of Royal Tenenbaums, Steve Zissou, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and those who don’t. It is this reviewer’s humble opinion that The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was the turning point. The difference between quirky Wes Anderson and heart-warming Wes Anderson.
…or simply by close camaraderie and companionship (e.g. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, The Grand Budapest Hotel)…
…unlike previous offerings The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, The Grand Budapest Hotel or Fantastic Mr. Fox, nothing registers on an emotional level.
Korda is a classically negligent Anderson patriarch in the mold of Royal Tenenbaum, Steve Zissou, or the deceased father of the Whitman brothers in the Darjeeling Limited (2007).
Bill Murray in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou…
The presence of the name Esteban echoes with “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” and two of Paterson’s voluble passengers, students and self-proclaimed anarchists, are played by Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman, the stars of Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom.”
There are hints of The Life Aquatic, which Baumbach co-wrote with Wes Anderson, with its absentee father who may not be a great artist either, as well as Anderson’s train-set Darjeeling Limited.
…from his side hustle collaborating with Wes Anderson, most notably on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou…
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Oliver lives in Wales with his supremely distracted and rather dull (the man is so mundane that he knows by heart the number to call to complain about potholes) marine biologist father Lloyd (Noah Taylor, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) and his vaguely discontented mother, Jill (Sally Hawkins).
Top billing belongs to Noah Taylor, who played a crewman in "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou."
But while The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou paid specific tribute to Jacques Cousteau, or The Darjeeling Limited to Satyajit Ray, his latest tries to honor too broad of a subject.
It’s a perfect match of a foreign bureau complementing personalities, the kind Anderson served up in previous films, such as “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.”
Anderson used Mark Mothersbaugh to score his historic run of Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, but in the mid-2000s he switched to Desplat, whose work here rivals the best of Mothersbaugh.
In truth, almost all Anderson’s movies, hitherto, have borne an air of packing; think of the boat in “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (2004), the train carriages in “The Darjeeling Limited” (2007), or “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014), with its stacks of servants and guests.
After a stretch of dry, high style, low-soul movies in the aughts such as “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” and “The Darjeeling Limited,” Anderson again found his footing in the ’10s with the wondrous “Moonrise Kingdom” and the Best Picture Oscar nominee “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”
The Anderson touchstones abound, from the cross-sectional introduction to the Bishop home (a la "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou") to the off kilter but just right musical choices (like Suzy and Sam's themes of Francoise Hardy's 'Le Temps de l'Amour' and Hank Williams's 'Kaw-Liga').
He’s been heading in this direction for a while, as evidenced by The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited , both of which had inspired ideas scattered within them.
Ever since The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, there has been an ever-widening gap between Wes Anderson’s fans and his detractors.
Only the submarine in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou or the farms and underground abodes in Fantastic Mr. Fox exist in more insular worlds-within-a-world, and like those films, the tracking shots in Moonrise Kingdom often make it seem like the characters are specimens in a giant, ornate dollhouse.
I liked "Rushmore," and liked "The Royal Tenenbaums" a lot, but "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" was so wretchedly unwatchable I didn't even bother seeing his next one, "The Darjeeling Limited."
For now, though, I rank it roughly alongside Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums” — lower than the great “Rushmore,” higher than “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” — in its slightly twisted formalism and sporadic, occasionally inspired comic returns.
But the wheels wobbled when Anderson was given big-budget freedom on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and his last film, The Darjeeling Limited (2007), was mostly seen as a failed effort to recapture the essence of his earlier work.
What else do " The Darjeeling Limited " and " The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou " have in common?
But not for director Wes Anderson, and his coscreenwriter Noah Baumbach (who cowrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with Anderson, and is a filmmaker in his own right: Margot at the Wedding ).
It has the anarchic sensibility of "Rushmore," the sprawling family of "The Royal Tenenbaums" and the pop-up book mechanics of "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou."
Director Wes Anderson first used it in portions of “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”, a film I have not seen.
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“The Meg” (whose story, from what I understand, is quite different from the original novel) may not be the most ferociously original film ever made—to be fair, though, with a tale involving drunken divers, ex-wives, goofy money men and a shark most people do not believe exists, there are times when it feels less like a “Jaws” knockoff and more like a bizarre riff on “ The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou .”
The thwarted rider is Bill Murray, an Anderson regular and title star of his previous film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
"The Darjeeling Limited," a slapstick comedy about three brothers traveling through India (or is it Ishtar?), is marginally better than Anderson's last film, "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," but that hardly makes it opening-night fodder.
OK, so his first feature Bottle Rocket (1996) leaves me a bit cold, but Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) are among my favorite films of recent years—especially Life Aquatic, which I think is one of the great bittersweet comedies of all time.
The mastermind behind such titles as “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore,” his next hatchling comes in the form of “The Darjeeling Limited” through the propensity of brotherly trio Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson.
Since his debut film, "Bottle Rocket," up through "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," he's plumbed the pains and pleasures of domestic life in crowded portraits of filial devotion and betrayal.