Film

Francis Whitman (Wilson) has called his younger brothers Peter (Brody) and Jack (Schwartzman) to India for some fraternal bonding time. The three board a train (the titular Darjeeling Limited) to take them across the country, but spend most of their time aboard reminding each other why they haven’t spoken in a year. Eventually, their erratic behavior—Francis and Peter brawl over ownership of a belt, so Jack maces them both—gets them booted from the train and stranded in a remote village. A tragedy there melds the incompatible brothers, and opens up space for a flashback to the moment that caused the rift a year before.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one already: Members of a rich, eccentric family don’t know how to connect; they display their melancholy in panicked, ludicrous gestures; and at least one of them is a wünderkind. Sound like The Life Aquatic? How about The Royal Tenenbaums? The pieces here are slightly different (subtract one Wilson brother and insert Brody, who’s not up to the comic task), but the whole is painfully familiar. Even the dollhouse construction of Zissou’s submarine is replicated with the train.

Anderson still creates beautiful stage pictures and has an unmatched ear for soundtracking. But his fascination with the imagined ills of the wealthy borders on fetish at this point.