TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Quirky 'Darjeeling' Goes Nowhere

ADVERTISEMENT

By CHRISTY LEMIRE, The Associated Press

Published: October 26, 2007

'The Darjeeling Limited,' the latest self-satisfied exercise in style over substance from writer-director Wes Anderson, will amuse his cult followers - as well as Anderson himself and his pals, of course - but probably nobody else.

This time he has amassed old friends Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman, along with Adrien Brody, to play estranged brothers who bicker while barreling across India on a train, supposedly on a spiritual journey. They haven't spoken since their father's funeral a year ago and their mother (Anjelica Huston) has abandoned them to become a nun in the Himalayas.

But the brothers Whitman, like the film itself, end up running all over the place without ever going anywhere. As in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' and 'The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,' Anderson seems more concerned with precious minutiae - the quirky, kitschy clutter surrounding his eccentric characters, all of which he shoots head-on in wide angle - than with developing people and scenarios that feel even vaguely real. (Anderson wrote the script with Schwartzman and Roman Coppola.)

The bittersweet heart of 1998's 'Rushmore' has long since left Anderson's movies and all that's left is a heart-shaped box, one that's obsessively detailed and exquisitely ornate - not unlike the one-of-a-kind luggage set the brothers schlep around.

The suitcases literally and figuratively function as baggage for the Whitman brothers, pieces they inherited from their father which have become emblematic of their years of pent-up resentments. Now as grown men, the three can agree on the need for cigarettes and cheap, over-the-counter Indian painkillers and that's about it.

Francis (Wilson), the eldest, has organized this trip and meticulously planned every minute of it to include time for both bonding and sightseeing. To make sure they keep to the schedule, he's brought along his personal assistant, who prints out and laminates each day's agendas (because he's traveling with a printer and laminating machine, naturally), all of which seems like a tactic to avoid dealing with the motorcycle crash that's left him injured and may not have been an accident after all.

(The sight of Wilson with his face and head covered in bandages, his blue eyes swollen with bruises and tinged with sadness, is an uncomfortable, unfortunate reminder of the likable actor's recent real-life emotional troubles.)

Peter (Brody), in classic middle-child style, seeks to draw attention to himself by wearing his deceased father's sunglasses and insisting he was always the favorite son. In mere weeks, he's also about to become a father for the first time himself with the wife he's pretty sure he'll end up divorcing someday anyway - a woman whom he inexplicably didn't bother to inform he was going on vacation to India.

Finally there's Jack (Schwartzman), the youngest, a writer who's still so obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, he secretly checks the messages on her answering machine from wherever the brothers happen to stop along their journey.

All these people are quirky constructs and none of them ever really evolves, even after 'The Darjeeling Limited' takes a jarring, ill-advised serious turn. But production designer Mark Friedberg deserves praise, and every once in a while 'The Darjeeling Limited' does have some lovely moments of subtlety.

MOVIE REVIEW

The Darjeeling Limited **

MOVIE BOARD RATING: R (profanity)

STARS: Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Anjelica Huston
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson
LOCATION: See movie times, Page 8, for local showtimes.

PLOT SUMMARY: Three brothers bond on a train trip across India.

RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes

ON THE WEB: foxsearchlight

.com/thedarjeelinglimited

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT