The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou: ESTEBAN! ESTEBAN!

Warning: this review of The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou contains SPOILERS. So unless you want to be spoiled, do not proceed past the spoilers, otherwise you will encounter... spoilers.

I stumbled across this theory online, so don't think I'm some magnificent film theorist, but what if -- WHAT IF -- Ned was still alive?

What? But the helicopter crash? There was a funeral...

At the very end of the film all of the main characters enter the shot and strike a silhouetted pose. Ned is already there waiting for them. You'd recognize that nose anywhere. Maybe this final frame means nothing. But maybe it means EVERYTHING.

What if we weren't actually simply watching a Wes Anderson film? What if we were watching a Wes Anderson film of a Steve Zissou film? What if the film we are watching is the crowning achievement Steve Zissou was working so hard to create? We would have to watch the film with the consideration that we are actually experiencing Zissou's storytelling voice instead of Anderson's.

Steve Zissou, aside from being narcissistic (or perhaps because of it), is also a tremendously unreliable storyteller. Jane says what we're all thinking when she tells Zissou that "aspects" of his Part 1 "seemed slightly fake." Crazy eyes and all. So wouldn't it be possible for him to document a death that didn't happen in order to emotionally involve his viewing audience and, therefore, garner better film reviews?

There are holes to this theory. Eleanor confesses to Jane that Zissou "shoots blanks." If Steve Zissou is behind the camera (and indeed, if he is the film's architect), then he would know his maybe-son is not his son at all. Unless this too is an untruth. But what would be the point of that?

I've considered this concept -- the movie-within-a-movie -- about other Anderson films as well. Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, in addition to co-starring Bill Murray, both feature playwrights as significant characters. In these movies it is possible that the films themselves are elaborate (and, of course, unrealistically produced) stage productions. That would mean the films are fiction, but aren't they anyway? Only now doubly so?

Again, this is just a theory, but it's one I like thinking about. First of all, it means there are TWO ways to view The Life Aquatic. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure. Secondly, it would mean Anderson puts way more thought into his films than we originally thought. We all suspect that he might be sort of smart, but with all the subtlety he weaves into his films it's not really obvious. I mean, anybody can pen deadpan non-jokey jokes, can't they? But to forge an entire film, as if it were written and directed by somebody else? And not even let on? That takes some brains. Or a good case of schizophrenia.

Regardless of how you view this film, it is a good one. On a graph it is the exact point where the quotient of subtlety and deadpannyness (value "S&D") running along the parabola of entertainment meets the apex. If the value of S&D were any higher then the value of entertainment goes down. If it were any less then the value of entertainment would also go down.

Starting from Bottle Rocket and ending at The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's films have progressed from in-your-face to under-your-breath. The Life Aquatic is the point just before things get TOO low-key. The Darjeeling Limited crosses that line. The Fantastic Mr. Fox backs way up. But The Life Aquatic is right there.

There is a certain hard-to-describe tinkly magic that makes The Royal Tenenbaums the better movie, but The Life Aquatic is pretty dang good too. I can't list all of the awesomeness. Bowie in Portuguese, red beanies, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray and Willem Dafoe TOGETHER. The characters are fun, the dialogue is witacious, and there are all the cutesy things that either endear you to or repel you from Wes Anderson. Personally I'm endeared.

Crackpot theories or not, I give The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou four Jaguar Sharks... out of five.

Chewed, not swallowed whole.