Review of The Darjeeling Limited (2007) by Avneesh M — 11 Jun 2014

Another memorable entry from Wes Anderson. Much better than The Royal Tenenbaums, but not quite as lighthearted and enjoyable as The Life Aquatic.

Once again, a film filled with endearing, though flawed characters, a sense of adventure, slow-burning humour, and well balanced drama. I feel like the comedy is more obvious and logical than in The Life Aquatic, where much of it comes from the honest-hearted awkwardness of the characters and their performance.

The camera does some interesting work here. There are shots that make the train cabins seem both small and yet with a lot of space between the characters. No obnoxious cutting comes to mind. Virtually every shot is balanced with cinematographic substance, and a quaint, almost home-made simplicity. Fixed angle, or right-angle whip-pans, and fixed zooms used very frequently, and suit the understated tone of the movie.

The third act does become very grave at a sudden point. It was a very effective turn in tone and meaningfulness, but that's not what I was looking for. Still, despite the real-world weight of the event, it was treated with a sort of straightforwardness that, to me, was both more touching and less contrived than what most directors would do.

And because it wasn't treated much differently from the style of the film as a whole, it eased back into more familiar territory so seamlessly, you'd be hard pressed to find a single point at which it goes from sad to normal again.

After the Tenenbaums, I kind of expected this one to be lame. I'm very happy to be wrong.