The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Directed by Wes Anderson

Underpinning the last 30 minutes of The Life Aquatic is a pathos unfound in any of Wes Anderson's former films. Bottle Rocket, his buddy-cum-heist picture, ends with a feel-good moment that nestles warmly on the correct side (i.e. behind and slightly to the left) of sappy. Ibid The Royal Tenenbaums. Rushmore is slightly different - a coming-to-terms/new beginning type of thing. All that The Life Aquatic promises is an end. As Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) descends a stone staircase, with a young German boy propped upon his shoulders, the look on his face says one thing: I'm done. Essentially it is the whole of Lost in Translation pared down to one, 20 second slow-motion shot. It seems to me that Murray (ignoring, for a moment, his being the blue ribbon bearer in Anderson's actor stable) was the prime candidate to play Zissou. His performance is the dynamic mixture of dejection and humor necessary to pull off the jig - a man coming to terms with the ends of what he loves to do best.

This isn't to say that film lacks the earmark of hip humor that has graced Anderson's previous films. Zissou is easily one of the funniest pictures of the year, with moments ranging from Chuckle to Guffaw on my self-conjured Laugh Meter. The dialogue is snappy enough to supply the laughs, but chock-full of innuendo buried deep enough that, on first viewing, it feels like at least 25% of the jokes were missed. The soundtrack fuels the humor fire, with most of it comprised of David Bowie tunes translated into Portuguese and played on a nylon-string guitar by actor Seu Jorge (City of God.)

But the meat of the film, the real point of departure for Anderson, is that pathos. Steve Zissou is a famous oceanographer/filmmaker, with both job titles waxing suspect as the eponym ages. His concentration seems to be focused on the job. That is, until the job kills his best friend Esteban (Seymour Cassel.) The territory tread is somewhat akin to that of Collateral, but the result is different. Zissou decides to pursue Esteban's terminator, the Jaguar Shark, with the scientific purpose of destroying it. Rather than reaching the conclusion that a job is an endless pursuit that eventually destroys the pursuer (ala the aforementioned Collateral), the job in The Life Aquatic is a phase, passed on like the Olympic torch. Steve Zissou, by the end of the film, realizes that his phase is ending; the time to pass the torch has come. Ergo, the pathos. He is a somber individual, as anyone facing a massive change would be, but an individual seemingly content to pursue another adventure. This slight change in pattern turns what might have been an average Wes Anderson film (which, despite the word 'average', is above the fray of the usual Hollywood dander) into a departure for the director, a welcome step in a new direction.