The Darjeeling Limited directed by Wes Anderson

Francis (Owen Wilson), Jack (Jason Schwartzman), and Peter (Adrien Brody) Whitman are brothers meeting on a train in India. They have not seen or spoken to each other in a year, since the day of their father’s funeral. When we meet them, Francis’s head is wrapped in thick bandages, Jack is writing an autobiographical story he swears is fictional, and Peter never takes off his late father’s blurry prescription sunglasses. Each has their own private neuroses, and each keeps secrets from the others. Dysfunction is bound to ensue.

This short 90-minute film, simultaneously intimate and epic, is unavoidably and unmistakably Wes Anderson, for all the good and bad that entails. For one thing, it focuses on a dysfunctional family, a favorite topic of the director-writer’s. For another, it features cast regular Owen Wilson and has a cameo by Bill Murray. And, of course, it contains all of Anderson’s quirky hallmarks: deadpan dialogue, intricately laid-out scene work, and a genre that blurs the lines between comedy and drama. But whether or not you are a fan, it’s a film worth seeing: shot in beautiful blues and yellows on location in India, with a redemptive tale of broken men finding solace and healing, and several laugh-out-loud moments to boot.

Though the main characters’ issues are many and deep—including a mother (Anjelica Huston) who has been “disappearing all our lives”—their father’s sudden death the year before served as the decisive catalyst for their familial implosion. Thus it is that Francis, the oldest, has taken up the parental role in organizing what he hopes to be a bonding trip. He has meticulously planned a series of spiritual locations that they can visit, with laminated itineraries to be slipped under their door daily by an invisible assistant, so the three of them can spend time together, meditate, and heal. His overtures are not entirely appreciated, however; trust and love cannot simply be willed back into their relationship.

Meanwhile, it’s Peter who has taken their father’s death the hardest. After days of passive-aggressive infighting and halfhearted spiritual day trips, Francis discovers that not only does Peter wear Jamie Whitman’s prescription sunglasses, but also uses his razor and carries his keys. Jealousy and unresolved anger between Francis and Peter fuel the argument that follows, which turns into a rolling-on-the-ground, running-down-the-train-aisles fight, exacerbated by Jack’s use of high-grade pepper spray to break them up. They are thrown off the train at a remote stop.

After this hilarious manifestation of sibling rivalry, they make up their minds to abandon their journey and go their separate ways– the trip seems to have failed. But before they can, they happen upon three village boys who have fallen into a rushing river. They manage to save two from the rapids, but the third dies; Peter, accompanied by his brothers, carries the boy’s body back to the village. In the ensuing scenes, the brothers are welcomed by the villagers, meet the grieving father (Irrfan Khan), and attend the boy’s funeral, a beautiful open-air pyre ceremony replete with garlands of flowers, white shrouds, and a bathe in the river following the cremation. We see a brief flashback to the day of their father’s funeral, with an effective scene cut that contrasts them standing tranquilly in the white robes of the Indian village to them sitting stiffly in black suits in the back of a limo a year earlier. When we cut back to the present, we realize that for the first time in the film, an air of peace has descended upon them.

The rest of the film follows what has gone from a “planned” healing journey to an actual healing journey. They pay a visit to their errant mother; they perform together one of Francis’s spiritual ceremonies. And when it’s time for them to get back on a train, they spontaneously decide to shed all of their baggage in a lovely (if obvious) metaphor for their newfound emotional well-being.