Like all of Wes Anderson’s movies, “The Darjeeling Limited” takes place primarily in a single, evocative location.
In this case, it’s a train, although it’s not so much an actual train as it is a romantic amalgam of the Orient Express and just about every other fragment of cultural nostalgia Anderson can access.
The India of the movie is more an idea than a reality, a whimsical Western projection that combines elements from 1930s picture books, films by Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray, The Beatles’ immersion in Eastern religion in the ’60s and centuries of Orientalism. Exotic, spiritual and, according to Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody), “spicy”-smelling, it’s a place where wayward foreigners can go to get their souls back on track.
Or so Francis (Owen Wilson) thinks. After the death of his father, the eldest son of the far-flung Whitman clan hustles his estranged younger brothers, Peter and Jack (Schwartzman), aboard The Darjeeling Limited, hoping to embark on a spiritual journey across the Rajasthani desert.
Francis is determined to accomplish three things: bring his family closer, reunite with their mother (who is living as a nun in India) and discover the meaning or purpose of his life.
Naturally, the minute they step aboard the train, long-term goals are waylaid by short-term distractions. Within what seems like moments, they’re drinking, smoking, popping pills and chugging pain medication. Jack pursues Rita (Amara Karan), the pretty train stewardess, and Francis obsesses over his possessions.
Wilson, Brody and Schwartzman are like a contemporary, depressive version of the Three Stooges. They are linked not only by their prodigious noses but also by their air of melancholy. And yet, what do they have to be sad about?
Like many of Anderson’s characters, the Whitmans are privileged, but this time the wealth becomes another source of absurdist humor. Francis wears a $6,000 belt and $3,000 loafers. Jack chooses a five-star Parisian hotel for his nervous breakdown. They are, by any measure, ridiculous, and yet you can’t help but feel sorry for them, they’re so trapped in their little self-absorbed bubbles.
Even when tragedy strikes, joining their fates with the fates of three young Indian brothers, there’s something a little selfish about the Whitmans’ quest for meaning and transcendence.
Still, the brothers have been through a lot lately – Jack has just ended a relationship and he keeps calling his ex-girlfriend’s machine to listen to her messages. Peter has disappeared on his wife, Alice, because she’s about to give birth to their first child. Francis recently has suffered a motorcycle accident that might or might not have been a suicide attempt (eerily prefiguring Wilson’s apparent suicide attempt in August). Their dad is dead and their mom seems to be running from them.
“I wonder if the three of us would’ve been friends in real life,” Jack asks, “not as brothers, but as people.” The answer is, probably not. Anderson’s narratives are shaggy and digressive, but they’re always about the same thing: the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of things in what can feel like a weird trip to nowhere.
The Los Angeles Times does not give star ratings.
“The Darjeeling Limited”
R for language. 1 hour, 31 minutes. Directed by Wes Anderson; written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, and Jason Schwartzman; Robert Yeoman; starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and Anjelica Huston Opens today at the Esquire.
