The Darjeeling Limited - C+

In theaters. Rated R, 91 minutes. Trailer.

Ouch. It hurts to give Wes Anderson a bad grade (Bottle Rocket - A-, Rushmore - A, Royal Tenenbaums - A-, Life Aquatic - B-). He is one of my favorite writers and directors, with his first 2 movies, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, being permanent fixtures in my favorite movies of all time.

The Darjeeling Limited tells the story of 3 brothers who haven't spoken in a year (since their father's funeral) that meet up in India for a 'spiritual journey.' The journey is planned and instigated by oldest brother Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson), whose face is heavily bandaged from 'running himself into a hill' on his motorcycle. The middle brother, Pete (Adrien Brody), is a married cleptomaniac 6 weeks from being a father. The youngest brother, Jack (Jason Schwartzman), is a mopey womanizer still under the spell of a cruel but beautiful ex-girlfriend.

As the group meets up in their oh-so-meticulously decorated train compartment, their tensions immediately arise, and their reliance on pain pills, alcohol and cough syrup provides a unifying element. The body of the film is their journey and the stops along the way, including several spiritual temples and participation in Indian rituals. Throughout the film they are preoccupied with their ornate luggage, inherited from their father, which is carried with them at every stop. The brothers' most affecting experience occurs after they are kicked off the train for disorderly conduct, when they happen upon 3 young Indian brothers in an accident. The Whitman brothers attempt to save the boys (to varying effect) and this leads to an extended interaction with rural Indian culture. The film then chugs towards its ending: a meeting with their estranged mother (Anjelica Huston) in a Catholic convent in a far flung corner of India. After a less than fulfilling visit, the boys go to catch their train, which they have to run after and in order to catch it, they have to cast off their father's luggage (in slow motion, of course).

The film proves the statement that the whole is something different than the sum of its parts. Each character (save Brody's) is well developed and acted, especially Schwartzman. In order to experience the full effect of the movie and his character in particular, you need to watch the introductory 13 minute short entitled Hotel Chevalier, which fleshes out his character (which you can do here, for free). Wilson's Francis is basically a rich and older Dignan. He obsessively plans and controls the actions of the brothers, to their annoyance, with the help of his alopecia-stricken assistant Brendan (the interaction between the two is very funny). The direction and cinematography is well done, but uninspired.

To say that the film isn't good just because it is too similar to Anderson's other films is an oversimplification. Those elements (including the ubiquitous Kumar) are there, but I think Anderson can still succeed in his mold if he will either co-write only with Wilson (this was co-written with Roman Coppolla and Schwartzman) or direct someone else's scripts. As I watched the film it just did not connect on any level other than my appreciation for the individual characters and their Andersonesque qualities. The pieces don't fit and I don't see how any spiritual journey was taken at all, yet they are able to literally and figuratively throw off their baggage in the final scene.

This script is amateurish and seems to be content in mining scenes and characters from Anderson's other films. His lifestyle of rich, eccentric adventures seems to have pickled him so that he can't get back to any connection to reality in his films. If I chould choose his next film (which actually will be a stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's book The Fantastic Mr. Fox), it would be something like American Gangster or a new film co-written with Wilson not involving brothers or fetishes. The soundtrack, as should be expected, is excellent. If only Wes could just direct montage scenes and slow motion sequences set to music, he'd never go wrong.

Hopefully Anderson can escape the words of Francis Ford Coppolla: "Few filmmakers who become known for some great work do work later on in life that equals it. And why? Partly because everyone has a certain thing that they can do, and after they express it, unless they're William Shakespeare or Akira Kurosawa, it's not easy to reinvent yourself."