wes anderson's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004)

it was hard for me to contain my disappointment when i first saw Life Aquatic, but it stands up insistently on another viewing, even if its problems are just as i'd remembered them: the seeds are there for the same sort of emotional character studies Anderson pulled off so well in his first three films, but whether through hubris or just plain laziness he refuses to water them, and the result is so emotionally distant that it would feel like a joke if the whole thing weren't also so twee and sentimental. but deep wounds aren't always fatal, and there's a fair deal to redeem Anderson as a technician even as he fails embarrassingly as a storyteller. Life Aquatic is still enthralling in its meticulous beauty, and if anything the ruthlessly indifferent affect of its emotional arc allows a cleaner sacrifice of substance in pursuit of style. (it's also to Bill Murray's credit that he forgot to read the memo about the film's emotional vacuum; he does some extremely fine, affecting work here.)