On the face of it, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, is an adventure tale about a Jacques Cousteau-on-the-skids-type who decides to pull an Ahab on the shark that ate his buddy. But mostly, like all Wes Anderson movies, it’s about being 11 1/2 sometime around the late ’70s, an age-era axis favored by Anderson and at least partly attributable to his current age of 35.
But Anderson doesn’t make nostalgic movies, exactly. He makes movies about the way nostalgia works on people — which is different. All of his characters have longed for something weirdly ineffable, like the present, or the adult lives they imagined as kids. Oceanographer, documentarian and hubristic tragic hero Steve Zissou longs for all of the above—plus a legacy; a son-figure; the reporter who has come to write a profile on him; a puff piece to get his career back on track; some money; a little consideration; a little understanding and revenge on a shark. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou’