Ever go to a family gathering, eg. a Thanksgiving, with someone you just met? The family thinks that they're really different and goes out of their way to prove it to you: there are a million inside jokes, none of which are ever explained to you; they laugh constantly at the simplest lines; everyone has a quirk or two which is revealed to you with great glee; they're forever saying how you'll "get it" if you manage to survive the holiday hahahahahahaha.
If you enjoy this kind of thing, you may like Wes Anderson. "Royal Tennenbaums" was just an extended version of a weird family. Much like most theatre, the characters speak in isolation from any plot or character development so that the fabric of the story is unnecessary. The author merely intends to grind his/her point home.
"Life Aquatic" is a variation on this theme: Bill Murray's extended family is on his boat and a quest for a killer shark. Various family problems/ issues surface and are worked out (or not). No one really interacts with any depth: it's as if they're each in a separate bubble that slightly rubs against other bubbles. There's no chemistry, depth, feeling, character development, consistency.
Anderson's defenders no doubt love this "quirky" feel as it's so like real families who don't actually interact. Yeah, OK, maybe on stage people are like this.
One of the tragedies here is Bill Murray. He's been sleepwalking through movies for 10+ years. He's always the same guy who mostly watches as the world goes by, occasionally delivering a funny line. Here it's just more of that, but sometimes in a scuba outfit.
If you enjoy this kind of thing, you may like Wes Anderson. "Royal Tennenbaums" was just an extended version of a weird family. Much like most theatre, the characters speak in isolation from any plot or character development so that the fabric of the story is unnecessary. The author merely intends to grind his/her point home.
"Life Aquatic" is a variation on this theme: Bill Murray's extended family is on his boat and a quest for a killer shark. Various family problems/ issues surface and are worked out (or not). No one really interacts with any depth: it's as if they're each in a separate bubble that slightly rubs against other bubbles. There's no chemistry, depth, feeling, character development, consistency.
Anderson's defenders no doubt love this "quirky" feel as it's so like real families who don't actually interact. Yeah, OK, maybe on stage people are like this.
One of the tragedies here is Bill Murray. He's been sleepwalking through movies for 10+ years. He's always the same guy who mostly watches as the world goes by, occasionally delivering a funny line. Here it's just more of that, but sometimes in a scuba outfit.