The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Director: Wes Anderson

A fun Wes Anderson flick, though one that still feels more bloated than his others.

As part of our little, incomplete return to the films of Wes Anderson, my wife and I decided to give The Life Aquatic our first watch in well over a decade. It follows the title character, Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), who has hit a fairly nasty late-in-life rut. Zissou is a Jacque Cousteau-like marine biologist/adventurer who was once highly renowned and respected. In recent years, though, his star has fallen in the eyes of the public. His vices and arrogance have caught up with him, and nearly every personal bridge has been burned, leaving Steve in a haze of self-pity and existential crisis. A sense of purpose is sparked, however, when Steve's longtime partner is killed by what he claims is an exotic, previously-unknown species of shark. This sets Steve on an Ahab-like quest to find and kill the beast. Joining him and his normal crew is newcomer Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson), a straightforward, earnest, Midwestern pilot who believes Steve to be his illegitimate father.

The Life Aquatic was fun to watch again, though the weaknesses that I observed when it came out are mostly still evident. There are plenty of hilarious moments, often little gags in the dialog or facial expressions, as one would expect from a movie featuring Bill Murray and other great actors like Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, and Angelica Huston, among others. Having Murray play a weary, arrogant, dry narcissist on the high seas was bound to be funny, one way or another, and it is. Casting the greater tale within the notion of being a funny, quirky take on Moby Dick with a dysfunctional ship crew sets up a good deal of humor, too.

So what isn't it quite as memorable or funny as Anderson's other films? My feeling is that it simply tried to introduce a few too many character clashes and dynamics. There's the mystery of Steve's relationship with Ned. And Steve trying to maintain or repair his relationship with his wife. And Steve trying to impress and seduce a journalist who has joined his voyage. And Steve's rivalry with fellow celebrity marine biologist Alistair Hennessey. Then Steve has an entire side foray to save an "insurance bond stooge." And there's even a few other personal dramas thrown in here and there with members of his ship crew. It all just adds up to too much, resulting in a movie that feels too long, despite the film being a little under two hours. There were at least two moments in the third act that felt like good places to wrap up the movie, but it somehow kept going, resulting in a film that probably could have been a good 15 minutes shorter.

I think this image - widely used the promotional materials for the film - is a
perfect illustration of its main weakness. Too many characters stuffed into
a small space. Even with so much great acting talent, the movie would
have been better off leaving some of them back onshore.

A curious observation I made on this viewing was how this movie hinted at Anderson's interest in using stop-motion animation, which he playfully sprinkled into The Life Aquatic, usually in the underwater sequences. It's an early tease of his control of the form, which he would bring fully to bear in his later full-length animated films The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs.

The Life Aquatic is still a funny movie, and my wife and I did enjoy it. But I still consider it Anderson's weakest movie, mostly because it was overstuffed with too great a variety of interpersonal tensions. This is an error in judgment that Anderson seemed to correct with his next film, the shorter, more focused The Darjeeling Limited, and all subsequent live-action films, none of which has been more than 99 minutes long. Still, it says something when the worst of a director's seven full-length, live-action films is still a pretty good one. 

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Director: Wes Anderson

The wife and I have found ourselves unintentionally revisiting Wes Anderson's film catalog. It started with watching The Darjeeling Limited a couple weeks back, then continued with Rushmore last week. Having enjoyed those two, we kept it up with his follow-up to that latter film, and enjoyed it plenty.

The Royal Tenenbaums uses an impressive ensemble cast to follow the Tenenbaum family, a New York City-based clan which includes Royal, the self-involved, insensitive father; Etheline, a loving mother, and three budding genius children: Chas, Margot, and Richie. While the Tenenbaum kids all seem to be headed for greatness in their respective fields of interest - finance, playwrighting, and tennis - the dysfunction within the family (mostly due to their father) eventually derails nearly everyone's chance at great success. We mostly follow the children a little over two decades after they were all between roughly eight and eleven years old and still showed limitless promise. At this point, Royal, now completely broke and desperate but no better a human being, concocts a scheme to work his way back into his wife and children's lives.

This is the Wes Anderson movie I know best, having watched it every few years since it came out, and I still think it's pretty great.

The Royal Tenenbaums was the first film of Wes Anderson's to expand to the large-group ensemble approach. After his smaller-scale (and smaller-budgeted) films Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, we now got a story that juggles no less than a half-dozen major characters and their bizarre and dysfunctional relationships with each other. If there is any primary character, it is the titular Royal, played hilariously by Gene Hackman. His gruff, unforgiving turn as the thoughtless, selfish, destructive patriarch of the Tenenbaum family sets and keeps much of the rest of the story in motion. It's not always easy - not even in comedy - to create a character who's mostly despicable, but whom you ultimately empathize with. At least a little bit, anyway.

But the movie is more than just Hackman as the unfit, previously-absentee father. The all-star cast all live up the reputations that had either previously created and/or have since maintained. Anjelica Huston is as good as she's ever been, which is saying something. No surprise there. But the younger players - Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke and Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Bill Murray, and others - are inhabit their quirky and damaged characters splendidly.

In an attempt to bond, Royal brings his newly-acquainted
grandsons to a dog-fighting circle. Perfect example his
insanely misguided (but hilarious) attempts to reconnect with
a family whom he himself drove off with this type of thing.

This movie was also the one which I consider the first of what the movie-going world would come to know as "the Wes Anderson movie." While we saw it almost fully formed in Rushmore, it is with The Royal Tenenbaums that we get the hyper-detailed, meticulously-crafted, super vibrant visuals and ultra-sharp cinematography in each and every shot and movement. It's not to everyone's taste, as it shatters any illusion that you're watching reality, and it can have a cartoonish feel to it. But for those who appreciate an eye for visual details, it's hard not to be impressed. The impeccable quality has been a part of every single film - both live action and animated - that he's done since, and this was really the one which set his own bar.

All technical merits aside, the movie is still just plain funny. Hackman delivers Royal's brutally insensitive lines and needling to perfection. The Wilson brothers bring their penchant for playing zoned out, sensitive types fully into Eli Nash and Richie Tenenbaum. The rest of the cast is just as good, and they're all given plenty of hilariously odd situations that actually don't seem too far off the detached, near-aristocratic pursuits of New York elite types. As with nearly every Anderson movie, it does take a brief, dark turn that's difficult to anticipate, but the proceedings never get overly bleak. There is heart and dysfunction aplenty, but this is, overall, a comedy.

I still rank this one among my favorite Wes Anderson films. I've generally liked them all to varying degrees, but The Royal Tenenbaums is in my top two or three. Along with Rushmore, it's the Anderson movie I would recommend to someone who hasn't seen any of his. From either one of those, you'll know if he's to your liking. 

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Director: Wes Anderson

An enjoyable movie that fits right into the same quirky niche that Wes Anderson has carved out for himself in the world of cinema.

The Darjeeling Limited follows three American brothers - Francis, Peter, and Jack - as they reunite and attempt to bond in India, one year after their father's death. The trip is the brainchild of the eldest brother, Francis (Owen Wilson), whose domineering "big brother" nature is clearly resented by Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman). Each of the three carries around his own dysfunction, making for rather chaotic proceedings any time the three of them are together. This is especially trying since Francis's plan is that they spend plenty of time on the title vehicle, a somewhat cramped train that crosses the Indian countryside while Francis hopes to put the three of them back in contact with their estranged mother (Anjelica Huston).

If you're familiar with Wes Anderson's films, then this one would come as no real surprise to you. It bears nearly every hallmark of his live-action films (his animated ones, too, in some respects). Members of a privileged, dysfunctional family try to work out issues that have plagued them for their entire lives. They struggle. Something rather dark and violent happens. They work through things and find an imperfect but more tranquil place for themselves in each others' lives. And it's all presented in a meticulously-crafted and framed, dazzlingly colorful fashion. If you've seen one Wes Anderson movie, you'll recognize the style immediately. You'll probably also know whether you like it or not. The Darjeeling Limited isn't going to change your mind about that.

All that said, I've always liked Anderson' movies, to one degree or another. I remember watching Rushmore a couple of years after it came out, and while I can't say I fully appreciated it, I dug the quirky humor. The Royal Tannenbaums really got me, though, as I thought it was great. Since then, I've been sure to check out everything Anderson does, with slightly mixed results. The Darjeeling Limited is a solid offering from him, but not one I consider among his very best. If there's one thing that does set it slightly apart from his others, it's that he abandons his typically larger cast and focuses on the three main characters for nearly the entire film. Yes, there are secondary characters, sometimes played by famous actors, but it's mostly the three brothers and their fumbling awkwardness. It gives the movie, which is a tidy 91 minutes, an even more streamlined feel than some of this other movies.

Peter, as he inexplicably decides to buy a highly venemous
cobra. This is just one example of how good decision-making
is not the forte of any of the three brothers.

The performances are strong, with Owen Wilson playing the instinctively but unintentionally dominating eldest brother, and Brody and Schwarzman dryly seething at getting trapped within their own three-way sibling dynamics. We also get several faces familiar to Anderson's movies - brief appearances by Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, and a few others, all of whom execute their roles well.

There is still the element common to all of Anderson's earlier films - that the characters are all wealthy, self-absorbed, damaged white folks. And there is even a slightly cringe-worthy "what we learned from the brown natives" vibe in the resolution in the third act. But it isn't wildly overdone, so it hardly spoils anything.

The Darjeeling Limited tends not to be mentioned as among Anderson's best-known or strongest efforts, but it's not because it's a bad movie by any means. Rather, I think it's simply because it's more limited in scope and doesn't have quite as tidy a resolution as some of his other movies. It's still highly enjoyable, though, and one that fans of his better-known movies should try out, if they haven't already.