I’ve never felt compelled to watch one of Wes Anderson’s movies. Every one looks boring to me (I went back and tracked down their trailers, since there aren’t that many of them, and they still bore me – yes I know “Rushmore” is supposed to be brilliant. Maybe one day…). The trailer for The Darjeeling Limited didn’t bore me, it piqued my interest. It’s playing for free On Demand so I snuggled in on a cold, gray, rainy day and checked it out.
On the surface, I felt like the casting of Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman as brothers was just a terrible idea. The only thing they seemed to have in common was their noses all being, well, interesting. I’m not here to insult anyone’s looks, but depending on the vehicle, sometimes watching any of these men leads me to focus on the nose and nothing else. Admittedly, in the beginning of the film I was doing this (especially with Brody) but the film quickly took off in a direction where not only did I not care about their noses but I was immersed in the story so much that it became evident that their casting as brothers was quite brilliant.
I’m discovering that I really enjoy Jason Schwartzman. I blame Bored to Death for that. He’s likable and I can relate to him. He played the baby brother perfectly.
The storyline is one that could have been told anywhere but the backdrop of India makes the film both visually stunning and warm at the same time. It’s so comfortable that I didn’t see the major dramatic element that showed up midway through the film. I didn’t expect such sadness in a film already a bit melancholy but it worked toward giving me a better understanding of the brothers and helped make them more dimensional.
I’m very surprised at how much I enjoyed this film. It was nice to sit and watch a story unfold without checking my watch or wishing I had decided to do something else with my time.