The Darjeeling Limited

Starring: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Amara Karan, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston Directed by: Wes Anderson Runtime: 97 min. Rated: R Release date: September 29, 2007 - More Info
READER RATINGS:
5.8 OVERALL	Smart . . . . . . . . 6.3 Sexy . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Funny . . . . . . . . 6.8

The Nerve Review

Wes Anderson movies are invariably about family, but he's sharper and less self-indulgent when depicting surrogate families than actual ones — characters who share chromosomes tend to bring out his maudlin side. His latest effort, The Darjeeling Limited, follows three brothers, played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and co-screenwriter Jason Schwartzman, as they gallivant across India in search of themselves; the film has been positioned as Anderson's return to form following 2004's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which was widely perceived as overly fussy and emotionally constipated.

As ever, conventional wisdom is screwy. The Life Aquatic (in which the question of whether Owen Wilson's character is Zissou Jr. turns out to be a brilliant red herring) was Anderson's deeply poignant first attempt at growing up a bit, whereas Darjeeling, with its obsessive rituals and inherited mannerisms, represents a sad regression. Anderson even goes so far as to burden his siblings throughout their journey with a massive, numbered, hand-crafted set of Louis Vuitton suitcases, passed down to them from — yep — their late father. Say, these lost boys need to rid themselves of that Baggage! And so they do, in one of the most inanely literal climaxes ever, tossing Dad's trunks aside one by one in epic, grandiloquent slo-mo. Please.

It wouldn't matter so much were the movie consistently funny, but the mood is leaden and the whimsy forced, save for a charming fling between Schwartzman's Jack and an Indian tea hostess (Amara Karan). Consequently, when the film turns "serious" about two-thirds of the way through, the effect is not so much jarring (as I assume was intended) as it is dully gratifying: finally, somebody died. (This is also the first time I've found Wilson actively annoying, though that reaction was tempered somewhat by the knowledge of what he's going through at the moment.) What keeps The Darjeeling Limited on the rails, for a while at least, is the Darjeeling Limited: it's amusing to watch a director known for his exacting widescreen tableaux attempt to navigate a locomotive's narrow corridors and cramped compartments, all while keeping everything perfectly centered. Once the brothers were booted off, I quickly lost interest in their petty squabbling, all of which only made me long to revisit the sublime moment in Life Aquatic when Jeff Goldblum, playing poker with the pirates who've abducted him, sees that he's being rescued and decisively says "Fold," only to be instantly shot. Now that's truth. — Mike D'Angelo

Other Reviews

Variety
Alissa Simon
"Here, as in his two prior outings, Anderson 's arch, highly artificial style gets in the way of character and emotional development. . . piquant rather than profound."
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Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
"A train ride without laughs or charm."
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Village Voice
Nathan Lee
"A companion piece to Tenenbaums more than a step in new directions. . . I was moved by Darjeeling, flaws and all. . ."
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Your Reviews

The themes and actors may be familiar, but for my money, DARJEELING is a step forward for an auteur whose last two entries seemed to represent a stalled retreat. Anderson hasn't matched the mastery of RUSHMORE since that film burst on the scene in 1998 -- and he's still more concerned with style than substance -- but with DARJEELING, he's at least jettisoned some of the dead weight that's overwhelmed his prior films. The tale resonates not only because of how painfully funny it is, but because, whether hopping off a bus to attend a young boy's funeral, or tearing a protective cover off their dead father's Porsche, the brothers Whitman are finally, remarkably human. The film is a treasure.

posted by filmington on 10/14/2007 9:26:22 PM
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