I confess, following after The Royal Tenenbaums, a film almost beyond compare in multiple genres, The Life Aquatic felt….confusing. At first it felt, to me, as if WA had gone backward toward the style, sensibilities and understated beauty of Rushmore or Bottle Rocket (yet with a vastly bigger budget.).

Perhaps the lack of appeal was that it was too much, rather than too little. Cerebral comedies have rarely had an easy go of it, and who knows if Being There would have been the success it was without it’s immaculate pedigree.

But WA’s next films showed that TLAwSA was no fluke, but was perhaps simply out of sequence, as the public need more time to prepare. (Though I feel the sequence of films was very deliberately designed.) Perhaps had it come after The Grand Budapest Hotel, perhaps the public would have understood the humor and director’s motives a bit better.

I admit to not having a fraction of your insight, and am simply happy to enjoy your ideas, while hopefully not making too much of a fool of myself for expressing my own.

Thank you.