Shades of lei: Jason Schwartzman (from left), Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson pose as altar boys.

Family Guise

Wes Anderson’s latest trades irony for brotherhood.

by Sean Burns

Exciting and original? Yes. But sometimes suffocating too. It’s weirdly ironic that the best moments in these movies occur whenever the actors are struggling to break free from their dollhouse surroundings. In fact, I’m halfway convinced that Tenenbaums remains the filmmaker’s finest hour simply because Gene Hackman gives such a blustery, emotive performance, he can’t be contained by Anderson’s storybook frames. The tension in that picture arises from Hackman’s irrepressible Hackman-ness, knocking over the furniture and jostling the rest of the muted sad-sack characters. Without that kind of emotional monkey-wrench thrown into the works, 2004’s Life Aquatic felt depressingly airless, a whole lot of late-Fellini production design and lovingly detailed props in search of human feeling.

The filmmaker’s fixations get a thorough auto-critique in his fifth film The Darjeeling Limited—such an evolutionary leap forward that it’s already being slighted in certain cineaste circles as “the Wes Anderson movie for people who don’t like Wes Anderson movies.” Similar on the surface to The Royal Tenenbaums, the film is all about fractured family ties, and chock-full of poker-faced, depressive grief. But something curious happens during this very odd and endearing 90 minutes—real life comes crashing into Anderson-ville.

Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) are the Whitman brothers, who haven’t so much as spoken to one another since the death of their father one year ago. Francis, the domineering eldest, just had a nasty close call on his motorcycle, and has thus come to the conclusion that he and his wayward siblings must immediately repair their relationship and, while they’re at it, also “find spiritual enlightenment” in India. He’s booked passage for the three on a train called (surprise) the Darjeeling Limited, and his personal assistant will be along for the ride in the next cabin, indexing and laminating each day’s itinerary of important spiritual rituals and transcendent landmarks.

That laminating machine might be Anderson’s finest moment of self-mockery, with the concept of indexing important emotional breakthroughs and sealing them in plastic serving to comment on some of his previous pictures. Naturally, nothing on the trip quite works out according to plan, and the more these three brothers wander around, the further away they drift from Francis’ stated goals. As they drag around their father’s luggage, the symbolism becomes sweetly and pointedly obvious, as The Darjeeling Limited can’t resist visualizing the importance of releasing your emotional baggage.

A head wrap of ace bandages and gauze pads concealing that surf-tousled golden mop, Wilson is darker and more severe than he’s ever been on-screen before. Try as you might, you can’t keep knowledge of the actor’s real-life troubles from bleeding into the performance, which represents an intense and impressive change in direction from an actor who was starting to seem like a one-trick pony.

Most of the comic relief falls to Adrien Brody’s terrified expectant father and terrible husband, whose efforts to wedge his giant, lanky frame into both the diminutive train compartment and the director’s crowded compositions never fail to amuse. Schwartzman (who co-wrote the film with Anderson and Roman Coppola) sulks impressively as a foul-mouthed would-be lothario.

After the train gets lost (yes, it’s that kind of movie), our bickering Whitman brothers suddenly find themselves attending another memorial, mirroring flashbacks to that last time they all spoke, on the way to their old man’s funeral. For the first time in his career, Anderson seems to be playing the pain for real, without any sight gags or ironic distance to cushion the blow.

Before long, a wondrously complicated camera movement snakes its way through the private moments of the film’s bit players, suggesting the vastness of the human condition, as scored to the Stones’ “Play With Fire.” It’s the kind of spiritually enlightened moment you won’t find on any laminated itinerary cards.

The Darjeeling Limited
A-
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson
Opens Fri., Oct. 12