the darjeeling limited

My family thought I was crazy for thoroughly enjoying this movie. I loved it so much I have to see it again to catch everything I missed the first time around. Director Wes Anderson is known for his incredible eye for detail so I am sure there is a ton of hidden gems that will make it make it worth seeing more than once.

The story revolves around three somewhat neurotic brothers coming together for the first time in over a year after their father passes away. Their hope is to go on this spiritual quest to India to renew their relationship as brothers. I was immediately drawn in by the visual wisdom of every scene which was splattered with bright beautiful colors of orange, yellow, cinnamon and turquoise.

This was India with herbal remedies, sacred rituals, and a cure for everything. But the thing about spiritual journeys is, that you can’t go in with expectations, and you can’t force them to happen according to your own agenda.

Oh the joy of watching these three actors on screen as they meld as a family unit and make their relationships as brothers so unbelievably believable. It just worked. And to see how hard they try to make this trip worth their effort. You could sense that they just did not want to return home without finding what they came for.

One of the funnies parts of the movie is where the train comes to a halt in the middle of nowhere because it had lost its way. How is that possible for a train to get lost, and how often has that happened in your own life where you know exactly where you are going because you are following the path laid out before you, and then all of a sudden life stops in the middle of nowhere and you don’t know where you are. Wes Anderson is an amazing storyteller as he finds ways at eluding to the message but not coming right out and saying it and leaving it up to us as the viewers to grasp the clues and figure it out.

Another example, throughout the entire movie, the brothers carted around loads of luggage where ever they went, and you could feel this heavy burden following them around. It isn’t until the scene at the end of the movie where they let it go and leave it all behind, because if they continued to hold onto it, they wouldn’t be able to move forward.

This film was entertaining, colorful, fun, refreshing, adventurous, and intoxicating. For a brief moment, it took you away from the problems of the world and brought you into this spiritual quest where you always find what you were looking for, even though it wasn’t what you thought it was going to be.