Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The

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Thumbs up with reservations. Get the movie.

Summary

I like almost everything Bill Murray's done, especially the recent stuff. So when this movie got lukewarm reception, I didn't see it because I didn't want the positive image I'd built up tarnished. After watching the movie, I realize there was no reason to delay. It's a good film. Frustrating in some places, but still enjoyable.

In many ways, it feels like a continuation along the path marked by The Royal Tannenbaums. It's largely the same aesthetic, a bit quirkier, a little less serious for the most part. The kind of movie that you remember as being funny, but never actually laugh at. Well, that's the way you'll see it if you're into that kind of thing.

Details and Notes

Much like High and Low, this for me was an almost great movie with a single, tragic flaw at the end. In this case, it was the death of Ned. I understand why Ned was killed, but it was neither necessary, appropriate, nor successful in it's purpose.

I assume the intent was to offset the quirkiness, but the deadpan style of the movie did not need the serious note injected into it. Ned's relationship with the reporter was part of the balance of the film, Killing Ned destroyed that balance. The rest of the closing act would have played just as well, if not better with Ned there, and without leaving an unpleasant aftertaste behind what was up till then a tasty treat.

It seems that the movie was just fine until they fucked it up at the end has been my line for the last few movie's I've watched, so maybe I'm just in a mood. Yet I honestly feel I should have felt differently after this film, that I was being taken someplace I really wanted to go but instead arrived somewhere I didn't want to be.

Setting that aside, the almost cartoonish effect of the dissected sets and the stylization that cuts across the visuals, the characters, and even permeates the blocking and the actors movements is rather brilliant. Quirkiness in this film is not merely a quality of a few characters, but something almost palpable.

But then the problem... Ned's death violates the rules of the world as I understood them. That's almost certainly the point, but without some reason, it just seems like reaching. It reads like insecurity. Tragedy is well and good... even absurdist tragedy. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a wonderful movie (I imagine the play is good too, but I haven't seen it). The problem with Aquatic is that it's not tragic... Ned just dies. It's unaesthetic.

Still, everything else about the film is so strong that despite my frustration, it's still a really good movie. Like High and Low, it's more that this is a film that could have easily been and A or even A+, but ends up with solid B. Still ahead of the curve, but merely interesting rather than exceptional.