Nov 24 2007
A Fish Called Wanda Movie Review
A Fish Called Wanda opens with the credits’ score played over the swimming inhabitants of a well-tended hobbyist’s aquarium.
This funny movie isn’t really about a fish - although the namesake is an angelfish kept in one character’s personal aquarium, and features prominantly in the film as a plot point.
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Wanda is also a sexy, charmingly manipulative woman, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Through the plot, it becomes apparent that each character is, in their own way, in love with her. Ken (Michael Palin), a peaceful, animal-loving man with a painful stutter, can only worship Wanda from afar. He sees her as an angel (a humorous allusion, since Curtis’ character certainly is far from an angel). So the central pet in Ken’s life, an angel fish, is also named Wanda. And when Ken talks to his that fish, he doesn’t stutter. Later, when Wanda the woman wants information from Ken, she kisses him soundly - and his stutter also melts away.
While Ken’s character is only given the fourth most screen time (after Curtis, John Cleese and Kevin Kline), his role is memorable. A pivotal point comes in the film when Otto tortures Ken for information - by slurping down his aquarium’s inhabitants! Wanda is last to go, and Ken manages to squeak out his information only when Otto (Kline) reaches for this last, special fish. Otto thoughtlessly swallows her anyway, and the seeds for Ken’s humorous revenge scene (”It’s K-K-K-Ken, C-C-C-Coming to K-K-K-Kill me!”) are born.
Cleese and Palin, the wacky Briton team from Monty Python, manage to craft a coherent, hysterically funny movie, blended with the best kind of wit from both sides of the Atlantic.
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