The Darjeeling Limited

The Darjeeling Limited is the story of an Indian (as in the country of India) train called the Darjeeling Limited and three brothers and a man-eating tiger and drugs and a cobra and an expensive belt and peacock feathers. It’s also about screwed up family relationships, finding one’s spiritual path, and life versus death. Defining events. It’s a Wes Anderson film. Expect vibrant colors and perfect framing. Lots of blues and yellows. Kumar is in this. So is Bill Murray. Neither has a speaking role. The main speaking roles go to the three brothers: Adrien “I’m sad and sensitive and my nose is as jacked up as Owen’s” Brody as Peter, Owen “bandages” Wilson as Francis, and Jason “greasy mustache” Schwartzman as Jack(ass). Peter is a whiny bitch. Francis is a controlling, unsympathetic bastard. Jack is an unlikable hole in the butt. They talk a lot: a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. This whole movie is dialogue-driven. Lots of arguments and insults and awkward moments. They speak in that unnatural Wes Anderson dialogue sort of way. This movie is co-written by Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, so they had some dialogue in there as well. Owen Wilson probably made up a few lines too, but he doesn’t get a writing credit.

Darjeeling is not as funny as Wes’ earlier films. I didn’t LOL (just keeping it real) as much during this movie as I did in Rushmore or Bottle Rocket. I snickered a few times. This film tries to focus on poignant moments; I like that word poignant. Many of these poignant moments arrive in slow-motion, panning shots accompanied by Kinks songs. Wes likes to use pop/rock songs to extract emotion from certain scenes. I like the technique (Scorcese is the master of it; you can’t beat the use of Atlantis in Goodfellas) but it is overused in this film. My favorite part of the entire movie is an abrupt transition between a funny moment and a brutally dramatic scene (for those who have seen the film, it’s the part where Francis proclaims, “check out those assholes”). I also really enjoy the scene where Francis removes his bandages; it reminds me of the scene in The Royal Tenenbaums where Richie is shaving, but without the Elliot Smith song. Wes Anderson is a master at visually expressing the fine line between comedy and tragedy. I could write an essay about it but I won’t.

While nearly every character in a Wes Anderson film is both sympathetic and unlikable, I feel that the leads in this movie lean significantly more towards unlikable. No, I can’t determine the exact degree of significance but I am pretty sure that the p-value is less than .05. It’s difficult to empathize with any of the brothers; I want to punch them in their collective face. I think most of my disdain for these characters stems from the fact that they don’t work and they have all this free time to travel around and they have seemingly unlimited funds and all they do is whine about their shitty lives and take drugs. Their mommy didn’t love them. Oh, Jack is a writer, so that excuses him from the not-having-a-job part of my rant. I find the idiosyncrasies of characters from previous Wes Anderson efforts (i.e. Max from Rushmore and Dignan from Bottle Rocket) endearing. You may not necessarily like the characters, but you root for them. Bill Murray’s character from The Life Aquatic and the brothers in this film possess quirky traits, but they’re not endearing; they’re annoying. I root for them to fail.

I saw Darjeeling with the Hotel Chevalier preface. Jack (Schwartzman) is living in a room in the hotel. The length of his stay is undetermined. He orders a grilled cheese sandwich in French. He gets a call from a woman. He plays around with his iPod, selecting a song to play when the woman visits. He draws a bath. The woman shows up. She is Jack’s ex-lover, played by Natalie Portman. She's dressed like a 12 year-old boy. They exchange some pretentious dialogue (the most famous line of which is given away in the trailer) and then get to fucking. Natalie Portman in the nude…no New Slang. I think that people who like cute things will like Hotel Chevalier.

The last issue I have with The Darjeeling Limited is that it doesn’t know where to end. It didn’t end when I expected it to. It didn’t end the second or third time I expected it to, either. I don’t want to spoil the ending, so suffice it to say that I feel the whole Anjelica Huston segment is unnecessary to the story; it seems tacked on. It would mean more if this group of misfits failed in its goal or realized that the goal no longer mattered. And those damned peacock feathers. And that damned belt. I think a more natural ending for the film would be after the single, tracking shot of the train showing all the secondary characters in their elements.

In conclusion, I’m disappointed by my experience with The Darjeeling Limited. I know people who will love this film. I thought I’d really enjoy it. I didn’t. I found a few things to like, but overall I was bored. I’ll always find Wes Anderson’s visual style appealing, but a great film is more than just cinematography and attention to subtle details. I enjoy the Cheever and Salinger themes and characterizations, but I’m ready for something new. I’d really like to see Wes try to make a different kind of film, maybe a horror film or an action film. Maybe a wrestling picture (points for Barton Fink reference).