'Darjeeling Limited': Quirky Wes Anderson stays true to form

"Darjeeling Limited," a quirky, wacky, charming comedy by eccentric Wes Anderson, invites us to view the world of another dysfunctional family. And the invitation is given by a 13-minute short film, labeled Part One, and titled "Hotel Chevalier," which stars Jason Schwartzman as Jack Whitman, the youngest of three brothers. The short is a must-see if you want to fully understand where Anderson is going with this movie, in which the shallow and the deep share the same rails.

Part Two, "Darjeeling Limited," shows three brothers (Schwartzman as Jack, Owen Wilson as Francis and Adrien Brody as Peter), who have not spoken to each other since their father's funeral a year ago, and who set off on a train voyage across India with a plan to find themselves and become brothers again like they used to be.

Their "spiritual quest," however, veers off course rapidly (due to events involving over-the-counter painkillers, Indian cough syrup and pepper spray) and they eventually find themselves stranded alone in the middle of the desert with 11 matching suitcases, a printer and a laminating machine.

It is at this moment that an unplanned journey begins.

I asked my husband -- who has actually traveled a train across India, including the area of Darjeeling -- if the train experience in the movie was authentic. He replied that it was exactly like that, except much more crowded with people, and that the brothers were traveling first class, where he had traveled mostly second class for a much less luxurious trip.

Francis, the eldest son, has painstakingly mapped out the trip with the help of his assistant Brendan (Wally Wolodarsky) who has come along lugging the equipment but making sure there are invisibly delivered laminated itineraries under the door of the brothers' sleeper cabins each morning. Francis is determined to accomplish three things on this journey: bring his family closer together, reunite with their mother, who is living as a nun in India and discover the meaning of his life.

The brothers are linked by their prodigious noses and a sense of melancholy. Privileged, their wealth becomes another source of absurdist humor. Francis wears a $6,000 belt and a pair of $3,000 loafers (one of which is stolen by a shoeshine boy). Jack chooses a five-star hotel for his nervous breakdown.

They are ridiculous, but you cannot help feeling sorry for them. Even when tragedy strikes, joining their fate with three young Indian brothers, they remain strangely like spectators. In fact, each of the brothers has experienced his own tragedy in the last year: Jack has ended a relationship (with Natalie Portman), Peter has disappeared on his pregnant wife and Francis has suffered a motorcycle accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt.

There is a sense of a dollhouse with miniatures and a storybook formality to the movie but it is this attention to detail that makes this movie work. The brothers deal with their baggage, both real and symbolic, in interesting ways. It doesn't hurt that the luggage is Louis Vuitton, but how each of the brothers reach insights is more profound than trivial. Watch carefully for all the symbols that make this movie intensely insightful and philosophical, and you will find yourself strangely happy for taking this trip.