The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou *****

Director: Wes Anderson

Year: 2004

Writers: Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach

Cinematographer: Robert Yeoman

I've recently heard Wes Anderson get a lot of critical drubbing for just being a quirk peddler, and I must admit that I myself had let reviews I have read and listened to change my own opinion about the works of Anderson. While its true he doesn't really hit the emotional buttons very hard, perhaps because of the way his characters are so cartoonish, yet upon rewatching The Life Aquatic, I am absolutely ready to defend Anderson as a cinematic genius, and not just for his great set design, music tastes, or dead-pan dialogue and camera style... I am blown away this time by the way he celebrates boyhood, and always depicts his male characters like Peter Pan and the lost boys.

Forever caught up in a world of secret hand shakes, nick-names, special uniforms (often jumpsuits), parental approval issues, wild imagination, selfish and immature behavior so common among young boys. For Anderson, Steve Zissou is an aging ocean explorer and documentarian who is grappling with the failures of his adult life, but Anderson depicts the story as if Zissou is just another lost boy acting out his passions, fears, anger, and insecurity on the playground.

Bill Murray's performance in this film is fun. I love watching Bill Murray be deadpan, and when he's not doing a Jarmusch picture, I can't think of anything I enjoy more than hearing him deliver Anderson/Baumbach deadpan sarcasm and cynicism. The movie is funny for me so much because of the fantasy, the film within a film, which always acknowledges that it is a film. Its fun. Bill Murray's character is melodramatic, who hams it up for his camera while acting in his nature "documentaries" and stays in this Zissou character not only for the film within the film, but the film itself, hamming it up just enough to make his deadpan ridiculous as a spoiled child's temper tantrum.

Does it matter that Owen Wilson's Tennessee accent is horrible? No! In fact, it works better that way. The whole film is wonderfully, intentionally bad acting... making the acting even more impressive for me. Wilson and Blanchett especially work great together hitting the same pitch of bad accent, deadpan comedy mellow-drama.

The whole thing is just so much fun, and when Murray walks down the stairs in the quintessential Wes Anderson slow-mo final shot... it is more than appropriate that a young boy is triumphantly perched upon Murray's shoulders... Long live boyhood!