Before he put out Moonrise Kingdom last year, I think The Darjeeling Limited may have been Wes Anderson’s sweetest film. It features not two brothers, but three, played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzmann, on a train trek across India to reunite with each other and eventually their mother. It has all the usual quirks of a Wes Anderson movie that many find charming and deliciously strange and others find utterly grating. That template applies to Darjeeling to an extent, with its typical Anderson framing and bright color palette and pithy dialogue, but I found this one to be less detached than most of his other work.
Part of this may be the spiritual aspect, which I think is meant somewhat ironically but also possesses some actual meaning. It’s as if it takes the position of “of course this is all silly and absurd, but maybe there’s something to it and either way it’s a nice way to think about things for a moment.” The things these brothers experience together on this train are presented in a way that indicates a shared history, as though these new experiences are just the newest of many they’ve had together. It comes full circle in the end, when their visit with their mother results in a repeat of past events. The movie also nicely portrays the lies families tell each other and the baseless fears members will have of others finding out the truth. Also, a real nifty soundtrack.
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