Reviewed by Max Foizey.

Release Date: October 19, 2007
Directed By: Wes Anderson
Starring: Owen Wilson Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman
Rating: R

Wes Anderson is such a unique voice in cinema that it's easy to claim he has sunk too far into his own formula with his work, but that's kind of like getting upset that Jackson Pollack keeps painting squiggly lines.

I remember seeing his first feature "Bottle Rocket" on VHS (ask your parents, kids) and being blown away by the originality and lightheartedness of the work. Still it didn't at all prepare me for the juggernaut that is "Rushmore," starring a seventeen year old Jason Schwartzman and an acerbic Bill Murray, still Anderson's best film.

His later works ("The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic") have their supporters and detractors, but overall failed to live up to his early films. So I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed "The Darjeeling Limited," Anderson's best piece since "Rushmore."

Like someone who read Irving's "Hotel New Hampshire" far too much in high school, all of Anderson's work revolves around disjointed, larger-than-life families, and his latest is no different.

After their father’s funeral, three brothers go their separate ways in life, and are not in contact with each other for a year. During this year, Jack (Schwartzman) is involved in a doomed love affair, Peter (Brody) learns he is going to be a father in the midst of doubting his marriage, and Francis (Wilson) is involved in a motorcycle accident.

After his accident Francis decides the brothers should try to be pals again, and invites them on a trip by train across India during which they can share spiritual experiences and learn what it means to be a family. During the course of the trip they end up fighting, laughing, and drinking lots of cough syrup. (Just like the Foizeys!)

I was worried about Adrien Brody's casting, because sometimes his idea of acting is to give the camera his puppy dog face ('look at me, I have sad eyes and a bent nose!'), but he does a fine job here. Of course Schwartzman is excellent, and I believe his yellow bathrobe is already iconic with film hipsters.

This is a very funny film, but at the same time it is impossible to watch without recalling Owen Wilson's recent suicide attempt, especially because his character in the film is a bandaged wreck. “Darjeeling” is never weighed down by melancholy however, and manages to be quirky without being too self-referential. Events play out very honestly.

Bill Murray has a hilarious cameo as a businessman trying to catch a train, who may also be symbolic of the deceased father of our heroes. (At least that's what I got from it.) 

Toward the close of the film, as Angelica Huston pops up as Sister Patricia, the boys' mother, I realized I wanted to see the picture again immediately. It's that good.

A family tragicomedy about the tragicomedy of being family, "The Darjeeling Limited" is something special.

In addition to hosting 'Max on Movies' on Sunday nights at 7pm on 97.1 FM Talk, Max appears weekly on the Dave Glover Show Fridays at 5pm. A member of the Saint Louis Gateway Film Critics Association, Max has written about film and theatre for various print and Web media, and appeared as guest critic on various nationally syndicated radio shows. Max lives in Missouri and is a diehard Miami Dolphins fan. Do yourself a favor and watch "Hotel Chevalier," the short film Wes Anderson shot a year before shooting “Darjeeling." Besides being a classic short subject on its own, it fills in plot pieces of "Darjeeling" and makes the feature that much more successful. Portman FTW!