The Darjeeling Limited
It’s rare for a film to become truly what it’s about. That’s an odd thing to say about a movie, but it makes sense in a way. I certainly thought that Wes Anderson might understand what it meant after watching “The Darjeeling Limited,” Anderson’s fifth film and probably his finest.
I’ve been a fan of Anderson and his distinctly idiosyncratic movies since his 1996 gem “Bottle Rocket,” which he expanded from a 17-minute short film with the blessing of producer James L. Brooks and the assistance of frequent co-writer/actor Owen Wilson. From there on, Anderson caught my attention with the film that revitalized audience interest in Bill Murray in “Rushmore,” the Oscar-nominated family dramedy “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and 2004’s flawed, but nonetheless interesting “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” where Murray and Wilson played a father and son long estranged who try to form a bond as Murray’s Zissou goes on an underwater adventure of vengeance in memory of his departed friend.
Fractured families, and the ties a son can feel towards their father, are at the heart of “Darjeeling Limited” as well, which mutes the dry quirkiness that seemed to define Anderson’s earlier films with a palpable sense of loneliness. Maybe it was that change of mood from Anderson’s earlier films that lead me to be uneasy about “Limited” in watching the trailer, which failed to grab me in the same way his earlier films had. But then again, Hitchcock fans weren’t too high on “Vertigo” either when it was first released, despite that film being the purest distillation of themes the Master had been exploring his entire career…but that’s a discussion for a different review…at least about that film.
As mentioned earlier, it’s rare that films become what they’re about. But in watching “The Darjeeling Limited,” and contemplating it after, I did begin to feel that I’d gone on the same sort of spiritual journey the characters in the film had gone on, largely thanks to a screenplay of uncanny observation and feeling by Anderson, Roman Coppola, and co-star Jason Schwartzman. It’s Schwartzman’s Jack that’s the first Whitman brother we’re introduced to in “Hotel Chevalier,” a short film companion to “Limited” that’s indispensible in setting up not only Jack, but also the painful cynicism his character brings to the film as we watch him and his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman, baring all and being brutally frank emotionally) holed up in a Paris hotel for an afternoon.
But while the short helps make sense of “Limited,” it’s merely a starting off point for the film, which opens as an older man (Bill Murray, in a cameo that will come to resonate more at film’s end) runs to catch a train- named The Darjeeling Limited- in India. Running to catch the train is also Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody, reconnecting with the same pain witnessed in his Oscar-winning turn in “The Pianist,” best seen in the sequence when a local tragedy hits him too close to home), who along with Jack (played by Schwartzman with sharp honesty and humane cynicism) has been summoned by older brother Francis (Owen Wilson, in his best performance for Anderson or anyone). The purpose for their meeting is to go on a spiritual journey, which Francis has planned out with the help of hired assistant (former “Simpsons” writer Wally Wolodarsky), although his real intent is to get in touch with their estranged mother (Anjelica Huston, superb at being both saintly and sadly disappointed as only a mother can be), now a nun in the Himalayas. The three haven’t spoken in the year since their father passed away; Francis hopes to bring them back together with this journey.
But family reunions like this rarely work out in real-life, and even less so in the movies. A year’s a long time to not speak and expect things to be OK, and the Whitman’s aren’t very trusting of one another. One often shares something personal with another, wanting to keep the third out of the loop. When Jack shares one of his short stories with Francis and Peter, it’s impossible for the two to see anything but painful autobiography, even though Jack insists his writing is fictional. And Peter can’t stand the way Francis always orders for him when they eat.
But it’s more than just trust keeping the Whitman’s from functioning as fellow brothers. Their mother’s abandonment, most particularly in not coming to their father’s funeral, is of particular sting (there’s a reason Francis kept it from them), but other pressures and pains of life pick away at them. Jack, though dismissive of his ex in the hotel room in Paris in “Hotel Chevalier,” is nonetheless obsessed enough to continue checking her messages, although an encounter with a hot attendant (Amara Karan) on board the Limited helps dull that pain. Peter finds the impending pressures of parenthood- his wife is six weeks from her due date at the start of their journey- a source of stress and sadness. And Francis’ bandages, which cover the scars of a recent suicide attempt on his motorcycle (bringing to mind Wilson’s reported suicide attempt a few months ago), indicates a sense of loss and hurt we feel more than we learn about. And it doesn’t do any of them any favors that the three are habitually using and swapping Indian medications, which will get them in trouble more than once on this trip.
Can one trip- albeit through the evocative Indian countryside, shot beautifully by master cinematographer Robert Yeoman- cast off so many demons for these three? Not in the real world, and certainly not in the world as seen by Wes Anderson in this movie. By the time the last shot comes up- one of the most memorable in all of Anderson’s films- the Whitman brothers are closer to getting out from the shadow their father left behind, but they’re no closer as family as they were when they started. Well, OK, they are. But it’s going to take more than a spiritual journey across India to heal all their wounds. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if audience members didn’t find Anderson’s journey to be cathartic in maybe healing some of their own wounds…or at least getting them closer to being healed. It’s not often someone can say that about a movie, but then again, it’s not often that a movie feels like its’ subject matter. Maybe a few more of you will understand what I mean by that as you finish this review.
