Posted: 12/16/2004

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

(2004)

by Todd A. Kimmelman

Nobody does non-sequiturs quite like you, Mr. Anderson!

I didn’t immediately fall in love with The Royal Tennenbaums; much like how Edward explains opera to Vivian in Pretty Woman, I had to grow to appreciate it. Perhaps it was my nemesis, the single-noted Ben Stiller, that ruined Tennenbaums for me, but I digress.

Wes Anderson found a place in my heart after I first saw Rushmore, which contains one of my favorite quotes to this day about O.R. scrubs:

“I like your nurse’s uniform, guy.”
“These are O.R. scrubs.”
“Oh, are they?”

Anderson has a style all his own, which one can immediately recognize in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Bill Murray plays the title character, Steve Zissou, an oceanographer, explorer and filmmaker cut from the same cloth as Jacques Cousteau, but with more of a frayed edge. Zissou, his team and their ship, the Belafonte, have clearly seen better days, and this film “documents” what may be their last mission together.

The supporting cast is stellar, to say the least, and includes many fixtures of Anderson’s films. Angelica Houston plays Eleanor Zissou, Steve’s sultry better half, and the obvious brains behind the operation. Owen Wilson plays Ned Plimpton, nee’ Kingsley Zissou, who may or may not be the offspring of one of Steve’s early affairs.

Wilem Dafoe is a hilarious addition to Anderson’s players. He is Klaus Daimler, Team Zissou’s first officer, and the son Steve never knew he wished he’d had - at least in Klaus’ mind.

Jeff Goldblum is another brilliant ‘s brood. He plays Alistair Hennessey, Steve Zissou’s nemesis and former paramour of his current wife, Eleanor. Goldblum, like Dafoe, steals every scene in which he appears.

Not often does costuming take such a central role as it does in this film. The Life Aquatic is teeming with skin-tight SCUBA gear, speedos and red knit caps. It becomes somewhat distracting, in a few scenes, and makes one wonder just how disruptive Colin Farrell’s deleted nude scene in A Home at the End of the World would have been by comparison.

The Belafonte, Team Zissou’s ship, and home, is as unusual as its crew. Shots of the exterior show an actual sea-going vessel, but many of the interior sequences showcase the Belafonte as an elaborate habitrail, complete with a state-of-the-art kitchen, and sauna with full-time masseuse.

Indeed, The Life Aquatic’s soundtrack is as odd as the film itself. I couldn’t place it, until “Rebel, Rebel”, but the ship’s “safety expert”, Pele’ dos Santos (played by Seu Jorge) is frequently seen strumming his guitar and singing David Bowie songs in a language that I now know to be Portuguese.

The Life Aquatic is full of the droll exposition you’d expect from a Wes Anderson picture, but Murray’s Steve Zissou brings a deeper emotional dimension lacking in Gene Hackman’s Royal Tennenbaum. While you’re being bombarded by quirky non-sequiturs, suddenly you find yourself genuinely moved by Team Zissou’s - and eventually Steve’s - quests.

As evidenced by his performance in last year’s Lost in Translation, Murray is a smart, comedic force to be reckoned with. If his role in The Life Aquatic is overlooked by the Academy, then something indeed stinks in the Kingdom of Hollywood - and it ain’t just Harvey Weinstein.

Todd A. Kimmelman is a film critic living in Los Angeles.

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