When you hear Wes Anderson’s (Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) name on a movie you know exactly what you’re in for. Often dry humor, apathetic characters, dead-pan lines and pauses between lines that leave you hanging until phrases like “I heard from her yesterday” and “Why did you bring him?” are often followed up with no explanation until later in the film. Actually for show and tell to friends at dinner parties and what not, a friend of mine and I every now and then used to do improve parody Wes Anderson scenes for laughs. This isn’t to poke fun at Wes, because I love his films, but he does have a very distinct way of writing and directing that’s pretty unwavering. The Darjeeling Limited is nothing short of that with 3 brothers (Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson) on a train, love complications, quests, shenanigans, neurosis, and of course Bill Murray.
The movie was actually shot in India and they actually got a train for the duration of the film and shot those scenes on the train which I’m sure added for an extra fun challenge. The colors that were used were brilliant and complimented each scene well. Wes made sure to get the most extreme blues and reds and yellows, including many more vivid colors to give the look of the film an interesting continuity which fit the film rather well.
Even though it had all the routine things Wes usually includes the humor I thought was up there over some of his past films at times. Usually you get the humor in the looks of the actors or subtle things, but with this time there were actual lines that had me going for a while after the scene’s were over. There’s one line in particular that a few friends of mine and I keep referring to because the timing was absolutely perfect on it.
Jason Schwartzman actually helped co-write the film and according to Jason with long distant phone calls to Wes (Paris) and Jason (LA), including co-writer Roman Coppola, for hours at time over two years added up to what became The Darjeeling Limited. It actually started with Jason and Wes taking walks with their dogs late at night and sharing stories and experiences and from there it grew and grew.
There’s also a 12 minute short prequel to the movie called The Hotel Chevalier which is available now on iTunes for free. It isn’t a MUST see before seeing The Darjeeling Limited, but worth seeing for sure as it explains a little more to help you along for the duration of the full feature.
Overall I’d say it’s worth seeing, especially if you’ve seen and liked any other Wes Anderson movies. It wasn’t my favorite of his, and actually one of my least favorites of his to be completely honest. That being said though it’s still a great movie. And to be fair I thought the film was going to to go one way the whole time, but it never made it there for what I was expecting. Now knowing where it went, I do want to see again and just appreciate the film for what it was…just a good Wes Anderson saga.
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Dan Tana
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