Families are key in the world of Wes Anderson. His most beloved film, The Royal Tenenbaums, may be about the most eccentric family in modern cinema. The Tenenbaums may seem a little crazy, but they have nothing on the fractured Whitmans, the family at the center of Anderson's underrated 2007 film The Darjeeling Limited.
The Whitman brothers – Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Scwartzman) – travel to India, where Francis hopes to lead them on a spiritual journey to reconnect, a year after their father's death. None of them have seen each other since that funeral in New York and they lead very different lives. Jack is a globe-trotting author who can't remember the last time he was in the States and he's obsessed with an ex-girlfriend. Peter is a married man, about to be a father and believes he was their father's favorite (which entitles him to their father's belongings). Francis has just survived a horrible motorcycle accident, which is why he wants to take his brothers on a spiritual journey he's planned out (all outlined on laminated itineraries).
Along the train ride, Francis hopes to take his brothers to the most spiritual places in India, but his real motive is to get them to see their mother (Anjelica Houston), who none of them have seen in years. She's now running a convent in the Himalayas and Francis knows that if he actually told his brothers this, they wouldn’t have come. The three of them also don't trust each other, but in the confines of the train, they find it too hard to keep secrets.
A serious of events on their stops help the brothers learn that they really should be there for each other more often. Unfortunately, the one thing that really unites them is a rough relationship with their parents. Despite all their bizarre personality traits, the three still think that they have a right to a mother in their life. It's the heart of the film, after all. And when they realize that they need each other more than their parents, the film reaches its resolution.
This is the typical Wes Anderson movie, but comes as a nice breath of fresh air after the dull, big-budget clunker The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. After that film, the auteur needed to make a movie like The Darjeeling Limited, taking him out of his American element and bringing his unique brand of filmmaking to India. Yes, it still feels like his movie – even with Roman Coppola on board as a new writing partner – but its focus on fewer characters make it a much stronger film than you might expect.
One of the defining factors of Anderson's film is the acting, which usually isn't a trait that many pick up on. We're all so focused on Anderson's extremely stylized look and his witty writing, that we'll ignore just how good his actors are. Brody looks like he was made to be in Anderson's movies and it's a good thing that he's in The Grand Budapest Hotel. He's the only actor in the film making his Anderson debut, but he never looks out of his element, playing well with Wilson and Schwartzman. There are also great performances from the supporting cast, especially Amara Karan, who plays a train attendant Jack falls for, and Waris Ahluwalia, the chief steward who is constantly annoyed by the Waltons' behavior. Anderson puts such love into every detail, which ensures that even his supporting players are far interesting that those in other films.
The Darjeeling Limited was prefaced by Hotel Chevalier, a 13-minute short that's a key part in understanding Jack. In it, he meets that ex-girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman, who does have a super quick cameo in the film itself. The events appear to take place just before the film, as Portman is seen putting in that bottle of perfume that the brothers smash in the train.
If I'm asked to rank Anderson's seven films, I'd put The Darjeeling Limited just above The Life Aquatic, but it has to go below the others. While I enjoy it and do find that it's a wonderful film, it doesn't seem to have an adventurous script, especially when you compare it to Tenenbaums or Moonrise Kingdom. The Darjeeling Limited is a great example of what Anderson can do with a simpler story with a unique locale. I think that this was the end of one portion of his career and with recent success with The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moornise Kingdom, it looks like Anderson has finally embraced the heartwarming absurdity he was made for.
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image: Amazon