After Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums were all widely praised by critics, Wes Anderson suffered the first critical flop of his career with his fourth movie, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. However, the movie stars Bill Murray in some of his funniest moments and has since been recognized as a misunderstood masterpiece and been venerated as a cult classic.
While the Jacques Cousteau-inspired antics provide a lot of laughs, The Life Aquatic is ultimately a movie about how sadness doesn’t go away and we have to instead find a way to live with it. Anderson’s script, co-written with fellow auteur Noah Baumbach, is filled with memorable lines.
“Swamp Leeches! Everybody, Check For Swamp Leeches!” - Steve Zissou
When Eleanor identifies the island hideout of the pirates that kidnapped Bill the bond company stooge, Steve leads a “lightning-strike rescue op” to save him. During their infiltration of the island, the rescue team runs through a swamp, and when Steve emerges from it, he finds himself covered head to toe in swamp leeches.
He cries out to his friends, “Swamp leeches! Everybody, check for swamp leeches!” However, everybody else is clean. None of Steve’s friends has a single leech on them, while Steve is buried in them. He has a hilariously dry response: “Nobody else got hit? I’m the only one? What’s the deal?”
“Land Ho!” - Klaus Daimler
Willem Dafoe gets a lot of The Life Aquatic’s most hilarious lines as Steve’s most loyal crewmate, Klaus Daimler. In Steve’s own words, Klaus is “calm, collected, German.” After the Belafonte is hit by pirates, Steve and his crew need to be pulled back to shore by the Operation Hennessey team.
Klaus excitedly cries out, “Land ho! Ho! Ho! Land ho! Ho!” as his boat is being towed into port. The Hennessey crew all share baffled looks as Klaus celebrates their assisted arrival on dry land.
“We F**king Stole It, Man!” - Bill Ubell
Steve expects an uphill battle when the bank assigns a watchdog named Bill Ubell to keep an eye on the production they’re funding. When Team Zissou robs an Operation Hennessey undersea lab for new equipment, Bill is anxious about reporting illegal activity to the bank.
However, by the end of the movie, when he’s been captured by pirates and rescued by Team Zissou, Bill is much more laidback and rebellious. Alistair Hennessey spots his own espresso machine on the Belafonte and wonders how it got there. Bill bluntly tells him, “We f**king stole it, man!”
“What Would Be The Scientific Purpose Of Killing It?” “Revenge.” - The Festival Director & Steve Zissou
At a Q&A following the premiere of the first part of Steve’s Jaguar Shark documentary in the opening scene, Ned asks what Team Zissou will do next. Steve says they’re going to shoot the second part, in which he’ll track down the jaguar shark and kill it.
The confused festival director says, “That’s an endangered species, at most. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?” With pitch-perfect deadpan timing, Steve quips, “Revenge.”
“What Sort Of Expression Is The Lad Wearing On His Face?” - Oseary Drakoulias
Michael Gambon gives a hilariously zany performance as financier Oseary Drakoulias in The Life Aquatic. As the guy in charge of funding a fading star’s documentaries, he finds his job increasingly difficult throughout the movie.
When he calls Steve to tell him there’s no money to shoot Part 2 of the jaguar shark doc, Ned overhears and chimes in to say, “I just inherited $275,000. Would that amount make any difference?” Oseary instantly spies an opportunity to pilfer the inheritance of a grieving simpleton. On the other end of the phone, to gauge if Ned realizes how lucrative his money is, Oseary asks Steve, “What sort of expression is the lad wearing on his face?”
“I Need To Find A Baby For This Father.” - Jane Winslett-Richardson
Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, and Cate Blanchett all play relatively grounded characters in The Life Aquatic to counterbalance the wackiness of the roles played by Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and the rest of the cast. As a journalist observing the Belafonte’s voyage, Blanchett’s Jane Winslett-Richardson is a hilarious foil for the crew.
Her character is mainly defined by her pregnancy as she prepares for single motherhood. During the pirate attack, she goes into a daze while fearing for her life and tells Steve, “I need to find a baby for this father.”
“Steven, Are You Rescuing Me?” - Alistair Hennessey
Steve’s “lightning-strike rescue op” to save Bill unwittingly means the crew stumbles upon a different hostage: Alistair Hennessey, Steve’s closest professional rival, played by a hugely likable Jeff Goldblum. Goldblum shares hysterical chemistry with Bill Murray throughout the movie, and it's exemplified by the surprise in his voice when Steve shows up and he’s playing poker with his kidnappers.
He asks, “Steven, are you rescuing me?” Steve awkwardly shrugs, so Alistair folds, and he’s instantly shot in the chest by one of the pirates. He manages to pull through, but the comedic timing of the gunshot is perfect.
“I Said Get Your Ass The Hell Off Of My Boat!” - Steve Zissou
The Belafonte is attacked by pirates when Steve charts a less expensive course through uncharted waters and Ned takes a lookout shift off to spend time with Jane. It looks bleak, but Steve promises that everything will be fine. Then, the adrenaline kicks in and he chews through the ropes around his wrists.
He tells the pirates, “I said get your ass the hell off of my boat!” before The Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” featuring Iggy Pop blares onto the soundtrack. Steve grabs one of the pirates’ guns and frantically shoots at them until they go away. Who knew Wes Anderson could direct such an awesome shootout?
“Who The Sh*t Is Kingsley Zissou?” - Klaus Daimler
When Steve learns that Ned might be his long-lost illegitimate son, he tells him that he wouldn’t have named him Ned Plimpton and offers him the name “Kingsley Zissou” as an alternative. Ned wants to keep his original name, so Steve begrudgingly prints up some correspondence stock that reads, “Kingsley (Ned) Zissou.”
While the Belafonte is heading through treacherous uncharted waters, Steve tells Klaus to check who’s supposed to be on watch. Klaus looks at the schedule and is baffled by the name he sees: “Who the s**t is Kingsley Zissou?”
“I Wonder If It Remembers Me.” - Steve Zissou
The narrative backbone of The Life Aquatic is Steve’s quest to avenge his friend Esteban’s death by blowing up the “jaguar shark” that ate him. However, when Steve actually locates the creature and sees how majestic it is (set to the emotive song “Starálfur” by Sigur Rós), he decides not to kill it.
Steve sums up the culmination of his journey – losing his friend, watching his stardom fade, alienating his crew, being labeled a has-been – in one beautiful line: “I wonder if it remembers me.”