After breakthrough sophomore film “Rushmore” put him on the map in 1998, Wes Anderson seemed destined to make his way as an incisive presenter of youthful angst. But what really worked best in “Rushmore” were the parallel paths of arrogant adolescent Max Fisher and burnt-out business owner Herman Blume, and indeed Anderson’s career has pursued the study of adolescents of all ages.

He’s known for his idiosyncratic visuals, full of pastel colors, characters in coordinated costumes, detailed sets, slow-motion sequences and a generous helping of Futura typeface. His soundtracks are steeped in the pop music of past decades, to the point that Wes Anderson soundtracks have become something of a cliché; the distinctive scores for his movies through “The Life Aquatic” were composed by ex-Devo mastermind Mark Mothersbaugh.

This decade he has given us “The Royal Tenenbaums,” “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” “The Darjeeling Limited,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and the short “Hotel Chevalier.”

“The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001)
Anderson started out his decade with a film that caused a small sensation, a story of three precocious children and their cruelly detached father. Not so much a story of a man in decline as a story of a family coming together at the end of their respective ropes, “The Royal Tenenbaums” realized a sort of fantasy version of a white upper-class milieu that seemed at once charming and slickly repulsive, characterized by unfulfilled potential, weird incestuous angst, drug abuse, emotional abuse and intellectual pretension. With hard-to-love patriarch Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) at the center, the film features a mess of fascinating characters, from drug-crazed best-selling author Eli Cash (Owen Wilson, who also co-scripted, at his strung-out finest) to sexually frustrated playwright and adopted Tenenbaum child Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) to bizarre psychological case-study Dudley (Stephen Lea Sheppard). It’s a touching ensemble film, with the sort of sentimental portrayals of has-been misfits that are so very hard to execute honestly. “Tenenbaums” may have been the template for what so many now spitefully call “indie quirk” cinema, but it runs on much more than silliness and light. It’s at once one of the cleverest comedies and one of the most enduring dramas of the decade.

“The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (2004)
With his second film of the decade, Anderson returned to a subject that previously cropped up superficially in “Rushmore”–the ocean exploration films of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. But upon the skeleton of a fun aquatic adventure, Anderson and his screenwriting collaborator Noah Baumbach have hammered together a deeply personal and stylistically engaging character portrait. “Life Aquatic” is often dismissed for being “too gimmicky,” but in reality all of its parts fit together perfectly: awkward dialogue that captures loneliness with sympathetic humor, striking visuals (including fictional fish animated by Henry Selick) that transcend preciousness and instead reach for a sort of modern magical realism, song choices that feel as if they were written precisely for the scenes they accompany even though they date back 5 or even 30 years. Seu Jorge’s diegetic Portuguese Bowie covers are a bit gimmicky, I’ll admit, but they’re still one of the most fun elements of the film.

Though “Life Aquatic” has its share of detractors, repeated viewings reveal it to be a modern masterpiece. Its success lies in the use of tonal dynamics, as it mixes glaring absurdity with subtle sensitivity, to tremendous effect. And, along with “Lost in Translation,” it revitalized Bill Murray’s career, which has been a godsend for comedy (and drama) geeks over the past decade.

“Hotel Chevalier” (2007)
A prequel to (or perhaps even a proof of concept for) “The Darjeeling Limited,” this short reunited Anderson with his “Rushmore” star Jason Schwartzman. Distributed for free on the iTunes Music Store, “Chevalier” was an interesting experiment in marketing an upcoming film. It’s basically background material for “The Darjeeling Limited,” filling in a blank that doesn’t really need to be filled in, but giving Schwartzman more room to play with his man-child persona. It’s worth a look, all the same–I viewed it after seeing “Darjeeling,” but it would work just fine as a first chapter to that film.

“The Darjeeling Limited” (2007)
Co-written with Schwartzman and his cousin Roman Coppola, this India-set family-in-turmoil story hearkens back to the repellent/sympathetic duality of the Tenenbaum clan. This time focusing on three brothers–Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Schwartzman)–the story notably lacks a putrid patriarch. The Whitmans’ father has died before the story began, and Francis stands in as the unbearable, self-centered twit who ruins everything but really just needs to be loved. As you might glean from that description, Anderson started to fall into self-parody a bit on this film, though not to a destructive extent. There are moments where even dyed-in-the-wool Anderson fans might groan at his attentiveness to his own formula, but there are also plenty instances of brilliant writing and touching performance.

This film marks a shift from his notably eclectic soundtracks, cleaving closer to the device of his first feature, “Bottle Rocket.” “Bottle Rocket” primarily featured songs by the L.A. psych band Love, and “Darjeeling” foregrounds three songs by the Kinks, though it also includes much Indian film music, some classical music and a couple other Western pop tracks.

“Darjeeling” has been accused of a sort of post-imperialist fetishization of India as a backdrop for the emotional struggles of upper-class white characters. However, the cultural impropriety seems more the fault of the self-involved characters, who are too distracted to experience India on its own terms, than any deep-seated issues on Anderson’s part. In fact, in the cultural richness of another country, Anderson might well have found the perfect stage for revealing his protagonists’ “ugly American” foibles.

“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009)
Just hitting theaters now, Anderson’s final contribution to the film of this decade is not to be ignored. (See my review of the film.) It replays some of his old tropes, but its lovely animation and the genuine cathartic punch of its final scenes indicate it will be worth many repeat viewings.

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Love him or hate him, Wes Anderson’s vision has remained both influential and thoroughly unique. He’s one of the great modern champions of the auteur approach to filmmaking, along with Tarantino, to the point of basically becoming a genre unto himself. There are some days when what you really need is a Wes Anderson film. And why the hell not? I firmly believe that watching “The Life Aquatic” enough times will make you a more loving, accepting person. Here’s hoping Wes keeps finding novel ways to tell his story well into the next decade.

Image sources: W Magazine, Wilson-Brothers.com, Reviews by Michael Ray, The Playlist, Arkansas Times, thevagabondset.com