I exaggerate, but only slightly. When it hit theaters in late , few American critics had anything good to say about it. Maybe it still does. I cherish its imperfections to the point where they no longer seem like imperfections.
Yet I hear a subversive whisper: Since it does so many other things, does it have to work, too? My already great admiration for the film grew as I dealt with a string of deaths between and βmy wife, my best friend and my stepmother, one after the other.
They take a marvelously balanced attitude, cherishing all the bustle and humor and pettiness and absurdity and other mundane realities that make up daily life in the aftermath of catastrophe, but without minimizing the burden of all that weight.
This is is one of the very few movies that I can unhesitatingly say made a tangible, positive difference in my life. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome. It sounds like the plot of a sci-fi thriller, or maybe the umpteenth retelling of Moby Dick or Jaws or some other nautical epic. Dry comedy segues into romance, farce, violence and deep sorrow. There are lyrical montages, funky action setpieces and shots of obviously stop-motion animated sea creatures with made-up names: sugar crab, golden barracuda, crayon pony fish.
Zissou is vexed by profit-minded backers and a nosy reporter, Jane-Winslett Richardson Cate Blanchett who seems to want to praise and bury him at the same time. His flaky sincerity that undercuts his arrogance and makes him seem, if not lovable, then at least tolerable, and sometimes pitiable.
