The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

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Directed by: Wes Anderson
Starring: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and Anjelica Huston

A few years ago I came across The Royal Tenenbaums and enjoyed the film despite it's EXTREMELY slow pace and really odd story. I picked it up on DVD having never seen it before because I came across it on the cheap and had heard good things about it. As I said, I enjoyed it but just didn't get around to watching it again for a couple of years. When I did finally pop it back in again I realized that The Royal Tenenbaums is one of those films that is good once but after that you really just don't have much of a reason to watch it again. Not that it's bad, you've just been there and done that. I mention that because I just got done watching The Darjeeling Limited and I can best describe my feelings after viewing that film as a big, "Hmm, OK... I guess." ...And it wasn't just the Darvocet I'm on because of this week's root canal.

The Darjeeling Limited is the story of three brothers who go on a train ride through India as part of a spiritual journey and attempt to reconnect after the untimely death of their father. The brothers are Francis(Wilson), the overbearing, bossy oldest brother, Peter(Brody), the quiet, neurotic middle brother and Jack(Schwartzman), the youngest, semi-stalker, semi-ladies man brother. The brothers haven't seen each other in a year and they somehow think that praying at temples in the heart of India in between drops of over-the-counter painkillers and whole bottles of cough syrup will somehow bring them closer together. After a brief and ultimately meaningless cameo by Bill Murray, the films starts with Peter barely making it on to the train as the trip starts(which seems to be a recurring theme in the film, they're all three ALWAYS running for a train). When he gets to the compartment he's sharing with his brothers we get our first glimpse of Jack and Francis, who looks like the freakin mummy. Apparently Francis had an accident on his motorcycle and his head and face is bandaged up tighter than Cher after her countless number of facelifts. Francis immediately takes control of the situation putting everyone on itineraries, ordering food for everyone and deciding all of the sleeping arrangments in the train compartment. Peter being the more moody of the three of course seems to have the biggest problem with Francis' overbering personality while Jack seems to just go with the flow... It's possible that he's just too drunk on cough medicine to care.

During their travels, the three seem to succeed more in pissing off the workers and co-passengers on the train than reconnecting in any way what-so-ever. Their adventures include stopping at Hindu temples, buying...and LOSING poisonous snakes, burying feathers in the ground(WTF?!), getting kicked off their train, finding their absent mother who doesn't want to see them in a convent in the middle of India and coming across three young boys in trouble in a fast fowing river. That brings us to the most interesting(at least in my opinion) part of the film. Soon after getting ousted from their train, the brothers encounter three boys attempting to cross a river on a makeshift raft which capsizes right as the Whitman boys walk up. They all three jump in immediately and manage to save two of the boys but as Peter fights to free the third from the tangle of ropes on the raft he loses his grip and both he and the boy go over a small waterfall which unfortunately kills the boys... Then we have a 15 minute sequence on the little boy's Hindu funeral. From there Jack, Peter and Francis decide to put an end to their trip and make plans to head home. As they get ready to leave for America they of course change their minds and decide to continue their roaming as the film ends.

Now if you've seen any of Wes Anderson's films then you know that his films are all S...L...O...W... And they all seem to have pretty much the exact same feel to them. The first twenty minutes or so of The Darjeeling Limited are probably the slowest of the whole film. That first part feels SO freakin Emo that it made me want to wear this t-shirt while watching the movie. Lot's of scenes of sighing and crying men. Weird. Now I'm not saying that the film isn't good. I did enjoy it, hence the reasonable score, I just doubt I'll watch it again any time soon as I feel like I've seen it before. Basically you either like Anderson films or you don't so I won't try and convince you that you NEED to see this film if it isn't your cup of tea. I'll let you decide that for yourseslf.




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