The Life Aquatic

Normally, if you tell me a film evokes the childhood state of innocence and magical possibility, I run screaming from the room. Couple this with my growing antipathy to CGI animation, and I had ever reason to shun Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic. Although a fan of Rushmore, I felt tepidly towards the Royal Tennenbaums, and have come to see the arch-quirkiness of some recent film as increasingly formulaic.

But a friend's stellar recommendation brought me to The Life Aquatic, and I'm so glad it did. Bill Murray, with his I'm-going-to-stop-trying-to-win-the-Oscar-now face on, managed to add new dimensions to his usual world-weary character by combining just the right dash of adolescent petulance. Playing Steve Zissou, America's answer to Jacques Cousteau, on an Ahab-esque quest to avenge the death of a colleague at the hands of a "jaguar shark," Murray interacts marvelously with his long-lost hypothetical son, played by Owen Wilson, and a supporting cast of mariners, renegades, and castaways, including Willem Dafoe in a throwaway role his infects with a half-devilish/half-childish glee.

The film is worth it alone for the spectacle of Operation Hennessey, the spotless cruise ship of Zissou's gay nemesis, who has crewed up with the cast off of Milan's menswear runways. Sublimely funny.

Now playing: The Big Band & Swing cable channel.

Now reading: Kandia Crazy-Horse, ed., Rip it Up: The Black Experience in Rock 'n' Roll