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Cate Blanchett is a pregnant journalist along for the ride

None of them are more loyal than his jealous manservant Klaus (Willem Dafoe, playing against type). "Calm, collected, German," Klaus runs Team Zissou's cameras and tries to defend his position against any new threats. There's a Pole (Noah Taylor), a Sikh, a topless "script girl," and a group of unpaid student interns who are only slightly concerned that their pilot has no compass. Below the ship, two albino dolphins flit about with cameras strapped to their heads, intelligent enough to disobey every order. Above, Pelé dos Santos (City of God's Seu Jorge) sits in the crow's nest and strums solo arrangements of David Bowie songs, singing them in Portuguese. Why? It seems arbitrary at first, but the more we become acquainted with Steve's restless spirit, the more these renditions of "Life on Mars?" and "Rebel Rebel" seem appropriate.

On this particular voyage, two wildcards have been added to the deck. An accountant "stooge" named Bill (Bud Cort) is along for the ride, reporting back to the expedition's grouchy financier—Oseary Drakoulias (Michael Gambon). Cort's presence is a brilliant bit of casting since he once starred in Harold and Maude, a uniquely subversive comedy that clearly influenced Anderson's style. There's also a beautiful and very pregnant journalist, Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett in another chameleonic transformation). Richardson is covering Zissou for Oceanographic Explorer, and she holds her cards close to her lifejacket, attending to the maverick sailor's endeavors with an intensity that mystifies, arouses, and ultimately aggravates him. But he's happy to have her along for the ride.

Zissou is even generous to his competitor, Hennessey, who has a bigger boat, better financing, and a crew of young men who look like they just walked out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue. (Hennessey's sexual orientation is as ambiguous as his qualifications for being a villain.) Zissou seems to believe that any great man must keep a good enemy around. "Be kind to Allistair," he insists. "He's my nemesis."

Jeff Goldblum is the wealthy nemesis, Allistair Hennessey

The Belafonte is a character in itself. The camera pans along a fantastic cross-section, mapping each chamber so we can see the activity going on inside. The layout testifies to Zissou's priorities. Where the Starship Enterprise is famous for its flight deck, sick bay, and engine rooms, the Belafonte seems built around a kitchen and a film-editing studio.

Torn between creative genius, quixotic madness, and relational incompetence, Steve Zissou is just the latest manifestation of the character that anchors all of Anderson's films—the lost and mournful king who realizes his kingdom is slipping away. He's a needy, sad individual who refuses to admit that he needs anybody, preferring to pretend he's still in his prime. Bottle Rocket's Dignan seems paralyzed in a simplistic, childlike, overimaginative state of mind, inspiring both pity and nostalgia in the jaded grownups around him. Rushmore's Max refuses to graduate from his beloved high school, terrified of moving into adulthood where couldn't be successful in everything. Tenenbaums' Royal has already lost his kingdom, and he fights to regain the days of a flourishing family, even though he's single-handedly burned most of the bridges he needs to cross.

Just as Tenenbaum's ruse about being on his deathbed is a feeble attempt to regain the love of his family, Zissou's quest to kill that shark is a misguided way of lashing out at the forces that have wrested life's steering wheel from his grasp. It becomes an opportunity to face his worst fear, and to realize that perhaps it is not to be feared at all, but to be humbly acknowledged and accepted, along with the grace offered along the way.

Anderson's patient, studious fans know that there is much more to his characters than their quirks. As always, there are hints of a very human heart beating beneath all of Aquatic's peculiar extravagance. That heartbeat is the relationship between Steve and Ned, characters united in loss. Just as Zissou mourned Esteban, so Ned misses his mother, a victim of ovarian cancer. They need each other. When the unmarried journalist touches her very pregnant belly and accidentally remarks "We've got to find a baby for this father," there's a wonderful irony in her misstatement.

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