The Darjeeling Limited

Three brothers meet a year after their father’s funeral to go on a spiritual journey together to find their mother who has become a nun in the Himalaya’s.

I watched this film with my brother and neither of us were particularly sure what to think about it. The Darjeeling, starring Adrian Brody and Owen Wilson, also has cameo roles from Bill Murray (in a fantastic scene at the start) and Natalie Portman. While Portman’s role is unnecessary, in my opinion, it raises questions about the ironic self-awareness of the film, which effectively involves three brothers carting their baggage around India before leaving it behind, joined together again.

The way the film was shot as well as the repetition and echoes in the film betrayed the fact that a lot of hard thought and preparation had gone into how the Darjeeling was structured. Generally, I came away with the feeling however, that I was supposed to like the film because it was clever and made me laugh in a few places, but that I was supposed to enjoy it grudgingly as I searched for hidden meaning within it.

The film explores brotherhood – Owen Wilson playing a dominating role which echoes their mother later on, Adrian Brody hoarding their Dad’s old things, the passing back and forth of a belt as a present – and the healing power of communication and simply being together without words. Some of the more poignant details are when the brothers seem to find more sense of fulfilment by shopping for ridiculous paraphernalia in the market place and swapping drugs than in the temples and shrines. While praying in ‘one of the holiest places in the world,’ the youngest brother asks the oldest ‘is it working?’ to receive the reply, ‘it has to be’.

I don’t know what values this film was advocating, if any. Perhaps that is the riddle of it. Certainly brotherhood seems to be the key to unravelling the film’s complexity. If I’m honest though, Adrian Brody put in the only performance that I enjoyed, and I never really felt that the three were brothers. Despite many memorable moments, I was not very interested in the development of the relationships – perhaps it was too clinical and structured, or perhaps I missed what the writer was on about. In fact come to think of it, that is the overriding feeling you get at the end of the Darjeeling; a feeling that you have no idea what the writer was getting at.