Three Brothers On a Train

Writer-director Wes Anderson trades in tragicomedy. The characters who inhabit his tales are usually family members in oblivion, odd characters fated for estrangement by their individual oddities, but who struggle heroically to forge, or save, the kinds of bonds that cannot be broken. His films play like books and look like commercials, the weird ones where the camera's subject is off in some corner, even if it's a face-to-face interview. Most people come in three types: those who love Wes Anderson; those who hate him; and those who've never heard of him.

The opening scene of The Darjeeling Limited is something of an omen. The Businessman (Bill Murray) is running for dear life. It's not clear what's behind him, if anything, but what's ahead of him - at a crawl just fast enough to mock his desperation - is The Darjeeling Limited, an Indian passenger train. Since 1998's Rushmore, Murray has been an Anderson regular, adding his comic sensibilities to that film as well as The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou. His getting left behind is an apt signal that the clown is not coming along for the ride. There is plenty, along the way, that is both poignant and humorous, but the tone of this film is less welcome to laughter than compassion. This is not so much a film full of laughter and tears so much as aches and pains in need of a salve.

But that slow-moving train, with the sly grin on its backside is also an apt symbol for life, which slows for no man but which beckons us all to make a run for it. More successful in making the mad dash - complete with an Olympic hurl of his luggage is Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody), one of three brothers sharing a compartment on that slow-moving train as it makes its way through an exotic land. At the moment of his entry (he looks cool in shades, almost like a skinny John Lennon), it's easy to forget the symbolism of a man bringing to the train of life his baggage from somewhere else. But how utterly Indian! This is a movie about karma and destiny, and detail like that permeates the telling.

Peter and his brothers, Francis (Owen Wilson) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) are traveling, at the behest of Francis (the controlling mother hen of the group) in an effort to have one last adventure together. They're not old men but they're old enough to know that life will probably send them in opposite directions, as it has already begun to do. Their father, whose initials, J.L.W., are stamped onto belts and baggage, has passed away. The three grown men he left behind are, in many respects, strangers and brothers. Francis (Wilson) speaks with authority, even from within a diaper full of bandages, the result of a motorcycle accident. I don't remember if or when it was announced that Francis was the big brother but Anderson never has to do so. Francis's demeanor is that of a mother hen, ordering for everyone at dinner, telling his brothers where to sleep and directing all to the itinerary which he, of course, wrote up. When it comes to the passports, there's no question where they belong.

Peter (Brody) is the quiet one, so quiet in fact that he withholds from Francis the news that he's about to become a father. His wife is 8 months pregnant but he doesn't want Francis to know. Why he's so secretive is not so clear, except that with Francis, there are no secrets - a rule he obsessively gets everyone to swear to early on. In-between the planner and the man-of-secrets is Jack, their father's namesake and likely baby of the family. Jack (Schwarzmann) doesn't hold much in, including his passion for Rita (Amara Karan), an attractive Indian woman who visits their compartment offering them refreshments. Jack is, in fact, attached to a woman in Italy, a woman Francis disapproves of because Jack is the kind of guy easily led by his passions. In fact, while Rita has a boyfriend, The Chief Steward (Waris Ahluwalia), Jack gives little thought to consequence as he makes his move for Rita.

The two have one thing in common: They like to smoke, and smoking isn't allowed.

This is a wonderful film, full of questions and clues that pull us through the story from beginning to end. It's also a film where any stray detail might moonlight as a hyperlink for a world of symbolism in a film about three brothers on a train working its way through the Indian landscape. Its missing virtue is its lack of an easy premise or easy laughs. Anderson's previous films have easier story arcs - like the estranged father trying to make things right (The Royal Tenenbaums) or a high-school student at war with an industrialist for the affections of an elementary teacher (Rushmore). They also have more cartoonish characters, like Klaus Daimler (Willem Dafoe), the half-mad, insanely-jealous, crewman in Life Acquatic. Darjeeling Limited is a much more philosophical film, making it less attractive to non-fans. My wife, who loved The Royal Tenenbaums and Life Acquatic, grumbled that this one is "slow." It is, if you're looking for slapstick. In fact, I'm not sure what genre of comedy one might toss this one into. Darjeeling Limited is funny but more as a dramedy, and even then, its humor is so situational as to make it lean more towards drama. There are moments of absurdity along the way, which gave rise to some of the film's deepest belly laughs, but they are few and far in-between. Most of this film is a study of character, a loving look at three odd brothers who might as well be bobbing up and down in the deep blue sea, shipwrecked by life's cruel ironies, but not in any Mel Brooks sense of the word.

True Wes Anderson fans will consider this humble review to have belonged on a cocktail napkin, as Anderson's storylines and shooting style evoke literary references and the work of great directors like Francois Truffault, but I call 'em as a I see 'em. Shoot me for being a stupid American. In the meantime, I stand by my warning against seeing this film, if you're looking for a mindless yuckfest. This is a dramedy, and as its ironies are less vivid, it's really for Anderson fans and those with the patience to enjoy a study in (funny) personalities. Like other films by Wes Anderson, The Darjeeling Limited is a musing on the ultimate meaning of an existence that may have no meaning except for the relationships between ourselves and those we travel with. Because it dramatizes that story so well, I cannot find fault with a comedy whose yucks are mere smiles but whose observations are so worthwhile. This is not a comedy to bring to your next frat party, but if you're winding down with a glass of wine in one hand and a bag of Doritos in the other, you could do a lot worse.