The Darjeeling Limited

Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are two of my favorite films of the last decade, but after The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou I feared that Wes Anderson had definitely gone off the boil. There have been numerous articles detailing how his personal style had imploded on itself, creating a world that may have been meaningful only to him. I'm happy to say that his follow-up, The Darjeeling Limited, is an improvement over Life Aquatic, though not in the league of those other two films (still haven't seen Bottle Rocket, by the way).

This is still recognizably a Wes Anderson film, no doubt about it. It's full of arch dialogue, slow motion sequences with emo-rock songs on the soundtrack, and a fetish for curious objects. The Darjeeling Limited, though, has a storyline that holds together, and unlike Life Aquatic doesn't seem to be mocking the audience.

It is the story of three brothers, Francis, Peter and Jack (Coppola, Bogdonavich and Nicholson homages perhaps?) Francis, the eldest (Owen Wilson), has arranged a train trip through India for a spiritual journey where the brothers can reconnect after becoming estranged after their father's funeral. He also plans on reuniting them with their mother, who has become a nun in the Himalayas. Of course their journey is fraught with obstacles and mishaps, including Jack (Jason Schwartzman) seducing a stewardess, Peter (Adrien Brody) buying a deadly cobra, and Francis, an obsessive control freak who has hired an assistant to create an itinerary, struggling to keep everyone on schedule.

Some of the metaphors in this film are so obvious they are endearing, particularly concerning their father--they are literally traveling with his baggage, a massive set of luggage that has been divided among them. Also, Francis has been in an accident and has a bandaged face, and at one point he says, "I guess I still need time to heal," a line that would have elicited groans had I read it on the page, but Wilson manages to sell it. The three actors do a fine job of creating a familial relationship that I think rings true--they are brothers, they love each other, but they don't particularly like each other. At one point Schwartzman wonders if they would have been friends had they not been brothers. Brody says probably, but the sad truth is probably no.

The film begins with the well-heralded short film, Hotel Chevalier, which is a prologue with Schwartzman and an old flame, memorably played by a partially-clothed Natalie Portman. The short is essential to fully understanding the entire film, as it is referenced throughout the feature (and includes a quick cameo by Portman in a scene that recalls Fellini's I Vitteloni).

To sum up, this film isn't a classic as Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are, but I think Anderson is back on good footing, and remains an original and interesting director.