Groundhog Day - 1993

"Groundhog Day" - 1993
Dir. by Harold Ramis - 1 hr. 41 min.

Original Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

There's been several Bill Murray phases over his career, and which one is your favorite version can depend on a lot of things, including which version you were introduced to first.  I look at "Groundhog Day" as being the finest film of his second phase (the first being broader comedies, running through about "Ghostbusters").  Scratch that, it's one of the greatest comedies of all time from where I'm sitting.  Murray would do equally affecting work later on, but probably until "Rushmore," there's nothing that hit all the sweet spots simultaneously.

Phil (Bill Murray) is a weatherman with a generally awful attitude, compounded by the fact that he's up against his yearly assignment to head to Punxsutawney to cover Groundhog Day, and local celebrity groundhog Phil.  His crew, including producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) put up with his behavior, not really having much choice.  A blizzard that Phil had mistakenly thought was headed elsewhere forces them all to stay in Punxsatawney for the night, which is even more fuel for Phil's attitude of misery and condescension.  That's when something funny happens; when Phil wakes up the next morning, it's Groundhog Day all over again.  Over and over again, starting with Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe," Phil has to relive Groundhog Day repeatedly, and with no instructions.

There are a million ways to dive into talking about "Groundhog Day," but my first statement has to be to reaffirm the impossible: Murray and director Harold Ramis have made a comedy that stands the test of time.  Just like "Some Like it Hot" or "The Odd Couple," the concept is rock-solid, the humor character-based (instead of a barrage of references, which age instantly and awfully), and the performances are dead-on.  So let's start with the concept.  The idea of having to endlessly repeat the same day is a sort of philosophic exercise on it's own - what would you do with endless time?  This becomes a test of one's character.  Phil starts off with the easy stuff; seducing a woman through deceit, amusing himself, even unarmed robbery to finance his hijinks.  When that wears thin, he sets his aims higher; seducing his producer.  In the terms of this story, she represents a clear upgrade in the female companionship department; she's upbeat, intelligent, willing to stand for what she believes in.  And Phil starts each day having dug himself a hole with his previous behavior and attitude.

On one hand, this goal represents a stronger challenge, but it also gets at the heart of Phil's problem: people are just props to his own goals.  Rita turns out to be an uncrackable nut, which reveals a startling truth about Phil to himself; even armed with infinite time with which to mine Rita's life for inside information that he can use to present himself in a more appealing fashion, Phil is fundamentally incorrect for Rita.  Throughout the film, we see Phil trying to take shortcuts.  The most visible way is in his daily broadcast covering the groundhog, but it's also on display with his sequence of dates with Rita, where he's theoretically nailing down what he needs to do step-by-step in order to bed her in one day.  When he discovers something that works organically, it's fine, but when he repeats it the next time around, it's insincere and hurried, and turns Rita off from him.  This is one of the geniuses of casting Bill Murray in this role; he errs towards insincerity and wit anyways, which can feel very off-putting, which leads to Murray being at his funniest and completely failing at his goals.  And, to hammer on the philosophy side, change can be painful and unwelcome.  But that's exactly what's required of Phil.

But that's not what comes first.  Despondency over his inability to seduce Rita builds into nihilism, because when you can't achieve the only goal that you've set for yourself, what point is life?  Phil tries to avoid the question, killing himself repeatedly.  But he still keeps waking up to the sounds of Sonny and Cher every morning, no matter what fate he's met the night before.  Even though Phil doesn't consciously come to the realization, he does recognize on some level that what's wrong with the situation is himself.  He stops worrying about himself, and tries to help some people around him, starting with a homeless man.  Even though he ultimately can't do anything to help the homeless man, Phil learns the value of the people around him.  This sounds like something that could be extraordinarily trite and hollow, but it's a transformative experiences for Phil, and one of the first steps in building himself into the sort of person that everyone (and Rita, although he's apparently given up on that) can respect and enjoy the company of.

Even though "Groundhog Day" is sharply written, it wouldn't be the same movie that it is without Bill Murray's performance.  This film contains a wide range of what he's capable of, while deconstructing the appeal of a lot of '80s comedy (it's hard to look at Chevy Chase or some of Steve Martin's arrogant characters that we're supposed to identify with in the same way after this film).  The story itself requires Murray to start as someone we're repulsed by, and then follow his development into something else, and to stay entertained the whole way.  That's a much more complicated task than most comedies aim for, and "Groundhog Day" and Bill Murray pull it off.  It's the difference between trying to pull laughs and trying to get an audience to actually feel something, the use of an advanced skill as a tool towards another, more difficult aim.

I'm not even sure how many times I've seen "Groundhog Day."  Maybe ten?  I saw it when it came out when I was in high school, so that's probably not a crazy estimate.  But it's such a rare beast, a comedy that holds up, and holds up even beyond just being funny.  How many movies that don't suck get across the need for empathy for others, and the rewards that can bring and do it without being maudlin or sappy?  There's enough greatness in "Groundhog Day" before you even scratch the surface to see what's beneath, I recommend it without reservation.

5 / 5 - DVD

Meatballs - 1979

"Meatballs" - 1979
Dir. by Ivan Reitman - 1 hr. 34 min.

Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I still don't know what "Meatballs" is about, or even why the film is called "Meatballs."  It's a product of a bygone era, a kind of genre film that doesn't really exist anymore: the summer camp comedy.  And to be entirely clear, I am not clamoring for a triumphant return of summer camp comedies.  I'm reasonably sure the only reason that anyone remembers or watches "Meatballs" at this point is because of Bill Murray.

A bunch of kids attend a $1000/week summer camp, I think (but that might be the rival camp?).  The guy who owns the camp is named Morty (Harvey Atkin), and is constantly being pranked by activities director Tripper (Bill Murray), who also is trying to woo Roxanne (Kate Lynch).  One of the kids, Rudy (Chris Makepeace), doesn't fit in, tries to flee, but is rounded up and befriended by Tripper.  Also, there's an Olympiad against the rival Camp Mohawk, a super-rich and snobbish batch of brats (so that must be the $1000/wk camp), consisting of a bunch of sort-of athletic events.

I had a hard time following the plot.  That's okay, no one watches a summer camp movie for plot.  Either you have a slasher cutting up dumb teenagers in the woods, or you're just hoping for hijinks and an occasional panty shot.  Although Tripper does tease a murderer in the woods during story time around a campfire, "Meatballs" is 90% hijinks, and maybe 10% panty shots.  But even then, the entire point of "Meatballs" is letting Bill Murray go HAM (in every sense of the term) for an hour and a half, the first real chance he'd had to do that.  And Murray totally seizes that opportunity.  Honestly, the film could probably consist of flyover footage of the Canadian tundra with Murray's dialogue as a voice-over, and things wouldn't have been much different.

In many ways, this is a proto-"Stripes."  It's not as good as "Stripes," but you can see Director Ivan Reitman and Murray feeling out some ideas that would come into play in their next film together.  Murray as charismatic leader? Check.  Big speech to rally the troops?  Check.

"It just doesn't matter!"

Taking on an impossible mission?  Check.  Murray giving some lady the old flapjack treatment?  Well, not literally, but he does spend an awful lot of time sweet talking Roxanne.  Granted, whatever ideas are in both films are universally done better in "Stripes," but "Meatballs" is where Bill Murray got some cinematic real estate to work out the sort of comedic character he'd play for the first phase of his career.  It's also worth noting that my favorite gag of the movie didn't involve Murray; one of the female camp counselors somehow manages to break her leg during a game of something (field hockey, maybe?) when she takes a wicked knee to her crotch.  In a real sporting event, you'd have announcers hemming and hawing and referring to a "lower midsection" injury, but we all saw the replays clearly showing a knee striking her lady-balls.  I don't know why, but I laughed harder at that than anything else in the movie.

I'd be shocked if I ended up watching "Meatballs" again.  It's got it's moments, and I can't get enough of Bill Murray, but there's a long stack of his films that are better viewing experiences.  I wouldn't discourage anyone from seeing "Meatballs," especially if you've never seen it before, but it's just best to be aware of what it is that you're in for, exactly.  It's like catching a talented baseball player in AA ball, when you can see the tools and the potential, but things haven't quite come together yet.  At this point, we all know what comes next in Bill Murray's career, so going back and watching "Meatballs" feels a bit like a homework assignment, albeit one that you'll enjoy a bit.

2 / 5 - TV

Ghostbusters - 1984

"Ghostbusters" - 1984
Dir. by Ivan Reitman - 1 hr. 45 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I can't watch "Ghostbusters" without being overtaken by a wave of nostalgia.  I remember Slimer, and I remember the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and I remember that "Ghostbusters" played on one of the screens in my small town's multiplex (four screens!) for what seemed like a year and a half.  I mean, I was singing along with the opening theme song absent-mindedly as the movie started, that's how drilled into my brain "Ghostbusters" is.

Who you gonna call?

Doctors Venkman (Bill Murray), Spengler (Harold Ramis) and Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) are investigators of the paranormal, with a grant from a New York college.  It's more of a hunch than a field of study with a lot of concrete evidence, until they're called into the city public library, and find an apparition.  This is very exciting, until they return to their offices, which are being cleaned out.  The university has given them the boot, which inspires the trio to launch their own business: Ghostbusters.  Paranormal investigators for hire.  Their first client, Dana (Sigourney Weaver), contacts them because of a disturbance in her apartment, which ends up being the beginning of something much bigger, supernaturally speaking.

I think, most importantly, that "Ghostbusters" represents peak Bill Murray, at least concerning the first stage of his career.  "Stripes" or "Caddyshack" might be funnier, but "Ghostbusters" is funny, preserves what makes Bill Murray himself, and was a huge box-office smash.  Like, a thirty-five foot Twinkie weighing six-hundred pounds big.  I don't want to downplay everything else about this film, but it's kind of Bill Murray's show.  Other people get the chance to shine, too, but there's a hierarchy here.

As for the everything else?  "Ghostbusters" is a clever, fast-paced, kinda chatty sci-fi comedy.  A really funny one, that feels unlike anything that came before it.  The idea of marrying comedy actors into an action film was unique then, standard operating procedure now.  There's also a streak of making really cutesy, funny things horrific, which I don't remember happening a ton previous to this.  One of the ghosts, Slimer, is a dripping neon green levitating Dr. Seuss character.  The giant monster at the end is not a lizard or a giant monkey wrecking everything in site, it's a marshmallow company mascot.  A chunk of the plot is trying to keep a possessed nebbish (Rick Moranis) away from a possessed bombshell (Sigourney Weaver).  There's also a series of story-telling devices that became standard issue after "Ghostbusters" (although I'm not claiming that they invented them), most prominent among them being the "getting famous" media montage, complete with clips from interviews with famous media personalities and faked magazine covers.

And dang it, "Ghostbusters" is just a fun movie.  It's broad enough for kids, Bill Murray enough for adults.  There aren't any lulls, the lesser characters are still fun (particularly Annie Potts as the receptionist, and William Atherton as an easily aggravated EPA agent), and there's enough action to keep anyone from getting bored.  The effects maybe haven't held up, but that's the problem with using effects in the first place, and the cheesiness of the laser beams and puppetry just add to the fun.  Plus, "Ghostbusters" backs up my theory that having a unique/sweet car in a film is a shortcut to success.  And the company hearse is pretty memorable.  C'mon, you know you wanted to re-watch "Ghostbusters" the second you clicked on this review.  Don't deny yourself!

4 / 5 - Streaming

The Monuments Men - 2014

"The Monuments Men" - 2014
Dir. by George Clooney - 1 hr. 58 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I'm not usually a big fan of war movies.  That's not to say that's exactly what "The Monuments Men" was, although World War II is the setting, and the Nazis are (eternally) the bad guys.  So you'd be forgiven if you took a glance at this, thought it was going to be a comedy about old guys trying to fight in WW2, and blew it off.  I generally don't care much about watching people shoot each other over a few inches of territory at a time; if I wanted to see that, I'd just watch an NFL game and comfort myself knowing that there is at least a minimally smaller amount of personal carnage inflicted there.  What makes "The Monuments Men" fascinating (or at least one of the things) is that it's a movie about a small group of men with a specific task in a very large, very deadly war that was for enormous stakes.  This film examines an unexplored nook, and makes a convincing case for why culture and history matter, and even though not everyone shared the same respect for what these men were doing, preserving those things was an act of patriotism on par with every other soldier's.

Frank Stokes (George Clooney) makes a proposal to the President - allow Stokes to lead a small team of men to protect whatever art is left standing after towns have been razed with bombs, and identify what's been looted by the Nazis.  You see, Adolf Hitler dreams of building a huge art museum in Linz, Austria, filled to the brim with masterpieces of art, all stolen from private collections across Europe, and especially from Jewish art collectors.  To that end, whenever the German forces would overtake a town, they would also go through whatever museums and art collections were in the town, and send back cherry-picked pieces home to Germany.  Stokes assembles a small team of artists and historians, and they head into the thick of the action, and immediately receive no support from the other soldiers, who don't really care what they blow up, so long as it means beating the Nazis.

Probably the first thing to note is that I would have gone to see this movie on the basis of the cast alone.  The main cast includes Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, and Bill Murray, which is a nice collection of talent.  All of the characters in the film are "loosely based" on the real people involved (except, I suppose, Adolf Hitler and President Eisenhower), so there's not much point in naming their characters.  The characters all mostly pair off; Clooney mostly interacts with a young translator, Sam (Dimitri Leonidas) and a disgraced British officer, Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville), Matt Damon is sent to Paris to try to convince curator Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett) to help with whatever information she has gleaned from being forced to work with the Nazis, Goodman and French soldier Jean Claude (Jean Dujardin) roam the countryside in France trying to gain whatever information they can, and Murray and Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban) do the same while also playing a hangdog deadpan comedy duo convincingly (and entertainingly).  It's hard to say who exactly stands out, as everyone in the cast has their role and nails it, but I think Cate Blanchett has to get extra credit as carrying the only real female role, and it's a hefty one, not a fluffy one that's solely based around her falling in love with some soldier.  Blanchett has a lot of range to cover emotionally, and she's absolutely spellbinding here.

In terms of what makes the story here work, one aspect that has to be acknowledged is that how you might respond to this movie will largely depend on whether or not you have any respect for the role of art in a culture's history.  Clooney's character does make an explicit argument for that, but if you're someone who just doesn't care, his assertion that taking away a culture's history and achievements is one thing that a people can't recover from might not hit home.  There's no dancing around it, you either believe that creative works are valuable or you don't, and if you don't, there are plenty of other films out there for you (although I'm not sure why you'd want to watch any movie if you didn't have some respect for creative endeavors).  For me, there were several moments involving the artwork itself that stuck in my throat.  Oddly enough, the worst for me was a still picture during the end credits that had the actual Monuments Men recovering a portfolio of prints, with the word "Durer" written on it.  I've been to Europe and some of it's museums, and I've seen Albrecht Durer's work in person, and the idea that if some Nazi dickhead had his way I (and everyone) would have had to bow down to an anti-Semitic regime in order to experience these pieces of human achievement really angered me.

There are other points in the film where the stakes are made explicit, in broader terms than one little thing that hit home with me.  This is some kind of war film, and that means everyone doesn't make it out alive.  Just because our band of protagonists deal in art and culture doesn't mean that bullets and bombs don't have the same consequences that they do for your everyday soldiers, who are also part of the story.  The point is that there are people who think that this stuff is also worth fighting for, that there has to be something left for whoever survives the awfulness of war.  The fact that the results on that front were mixed (that's not a spoiler, you have to expect some breakage if you're moving anything anywhere) says a lot about not just the talents of the people involved, but also the legitimacy of the threat that Germany and Hitler's ambitions posed to the rest of the world in this time period.  There are plenty of films about the big battles in World War II, this is a film about one aspect that flew under the radar.  I'm not suggesting that it's a more important one than the others, but it's a unique one with a great cast, and showed just enough of the war to keep the audience aware of the stakes, and enough of everything else to not be just another war film.

4 / 5 - Theatre

Stripes - 1981

"Stripes" - 1981
Dir. by Ivan Reitman - 1 hr. 46 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

There are some great, classic comedy moments in "Stripes," but they're not evenly spaced throughout the film.  Basically, this is what should have been a throwaway comedy (like whatever is currently in the theatre starring Jason Bateman - comedy product) that's elevated by a legitimately great first act and by what the actors involved would end up going on to do.  If it hadn't starred Bill Murray (and Harold Ramis), there's no way "Stripes" would be anything more than just some weird 80s film that keeps popping up on cable every so often.

John (Bill Murray) is a slacker (or maybe a proto-slacker); he's clearly smart, has a beautiful girlfriend, and almost immediately loses both.  His mouth never stops running throughout, but he recognizes that he's mired in mediocrity.  His solution is to convince his best friend, ESL teacher Russell Ziskey (Harold Ramis), to enlist in the U.S. Army with him.  Bill Murray in the Army?  Exactly.  And that's not even getting to other enlistees like Ox (John Candy), the seemingly brain-damaged Cruiser (John Diehl), or the psychedelically-inclined Elmo (Judge Reinhold).

In comedies, a good premise only goes so far.  No one expects the same quality of plot as you would out of a drama; you can have a great comedy that make almost no sense as a story, so long as there's a steady stream of great scenes.  In "Stripes," the story is pretty slim.  Slackers realize their situation, join the Army, go to boot camp, have a misadventure.  There are essentially three sections: pre-Army, boot camp, and misadventure.  Unfortunately, the first section is the best, and the third is the least.  But as much as it's disappointing to watch a promising film fizzle out (in a relative sense, I still enjoyed the film overall), the first act is about as good as you'll find in a dumb comedy.  Both Murray and Ramis' characters are established as well as you'll ever see, and even without explaining each guys' history, it's apparent how they each got into their respective messes.

John is almost always the smartest guy in the room, which is less a promise of success than an admission that he's out of place.  He shouldn't be driving a cab and getting stiffed for fares, but there he is stumbling along.  At the same time, it's not hard to see how he's landed a girlfriend like he had.  By comparison to his position and company that he keeps, he comes off like a genius.  And it's not hard to see why the girls never stay around, once they realize that there's a lack of drive to excel at much of anything beyond having something funny to say about pretty much everything.  When his girlfriend is leaving, John doesn't meaningfully promise that he'll change, but he busts off a handful of all-time great lines (to start, there's the whole Tito Puente thing, and then "You can't leave.  All the plants will die") to cover that he's aware of the inevitability of her departure.  But even prior to that, the entire world seems to pile on John all at once, which leaves him without the energy to do anything about anything.

Once the film hits the boot-camp section, the tone eases up.  There are very good moments here, too, but they're more screwball than the first section, which was about the world ganging up on John.  Instead, we get goofy characters interacting with other goofy characters, which works well.  There are at least three memorable comedy scenes here: the mud-wrestling scene, John and Russell with the cute MPs (the "Aunt Jemima treatment" scene), and the graduation "that's the facts, Jack" scene.  The humor's broader, which isn't a problem because there are still a lot of funny things going on.  But once "Stripes" hits the military RV sequence, the whole thing's about out of steam.  It's one thing to watch John Candy and Bill Murray being shaped into soldiers, but does anyone really want to see them in action, with stuff blowing up and bullets being fired?

On the whole, "Stripes" is still a funny movie.  For a thirty-year old comedy to not only be watchable, but to still hold entertainment value is an accomplishment.  At the time, it might not have seemed like a star-studded cast, but when you've got John Larroquette, Sean Young, and Warren Oates playing relatively minor roles, there's a lot of talent floating around this film.  And it's not a disappointment or anything, I just thought that, like a lot of comedies, it's a bit uneven and doesn't end as strongly as I would have liked.  But that's the difference between an all-time great comedy movie and one that I get a kick out of re-watching every so often.  But having said that, if there's a poster somewhere of the Ox "Teen Beat" cover, I need that on my wall as soon as possible.

3 / 5 - Streaming

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - 2004

"The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" - 2004
Dir. by Wes Anderson - 1 hr. 58 min.

Criterion Collection Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I caught the second half of "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" on cable earlier this week, and had intended only to re-watch the first forty-five minutes or so, up to the point where I had tuned in.  Instead, I got sucked right back in and watched the whole thing all the way through.  In my recollection, I'd considered this film to be the weaker cousin of a couple of movies ("Lost in Translation," for the Bill Murray connection, and "The Darjeeling Limited," another Wes Anderson film that is tonally similar), but I don't think that's necessarily a fair assessment.  It's not that I think "Zissou" is on equal footing with either of those films, but it's got it's own merits that demand more respect than that.

Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) is a Cousteau-type (a debt acknowledged in the end credits) in the middle of a late-career slump.  His documentaries haven't been striking a chord with anyone in a while, and during the filming of the last one, his long-time crew-mate and best friend, Esteban (Seymour Cassell) is eaten by a sea-creature that Zissou only gets a fleeting look at, and dubs the "jaguar shark."  Zissou wants to hunt down this creature for his next documentary (and for revenge), but literally everything is falling apart in front of him.  He can't get financing, his marriage is on shaky ground, people are openly mocking of Zissou to his face, he's lost his best friend, and Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) arrives, claiming to be his son.  On top of all of this, he's forced to cooperate with a reporter, Jane (Cate Blanchett) who wants to do a cover article on Zissou, as he can't afford to pass up the publicity.  Zissou and company head out on an expedition to hunt down the jaguar shark on Ned's inheritance money, making Ned a Team Zissou member.

There are two big reasons why this film begs immediate comparison to the previously mentioned films.  First is what you'd think of as "typical" late-career Bill Murray, in films like this one, "Broken Flowers," or "Lost in Translation."  Murray has pared his acting down to the bare minimum of action, somehow communicating fluently through expressionlessness.  It's something that only he can manage to do, and it's entirely appropriate here.  It also plays into the sort of tone that Wes Anderson only can manage to create in this film and in "The Darjeeling Limited."  There's a sort of searching going on in with Zissou, for some kind of direction that's been lost.  The fact that life just won't let up on him, piling frustration on top of tragedy on top of roadblock, offers an unspoken desperation to that search.

When Zissou does finally have some direction (even if it's not a larger, regenerative realization that he needs), the character comes alive.  He's a man who does things, first and foremost.  There are three moments where Zissou really breaks that mold, small moments that carry heavy dramatic weight.  The first is a moment shared with Ned during an attempt to rescue the bond company stooge, who has been kidnapped by pirates.  Steve levels with Ned, telling him how important it is to meet him at this stage in his life.  The second one is following the helicopter crash, and Anderson pulls back from Zissou at this point.  In his own way, Steve has warmed up to Ned, and to have him taken away is agonizing (and worse than seeing Steve react to Esteban's death early in the film, considering that we've barely even been introduced to any of the characters at that point).  The last one is a line Zissou offers when everyone's in the submersible, and they've finally tracked down the jaguar shark.  He says simply, "I wonder if it remembers me."  It's a complete gut-punch of a line, followed up with all of the other people literally reaching out to him in support.  At this point, every step that Zissou has taken in his life has reached a conclusion, and there's no more road.  For the first time in forever, he has the opportunity to make choices, and to forge a path of his choosing.

All of the things (or "quirks," if you're being bitchy about it) that you think of when you think of a Wes Anderson film are present: exquisitely detailed and stylized environments, deadpan deliveries, father issues, Owen Wilson, classic rock-influenced soundtrack (although this one, full of David Bowie songs performed in Portuguese by Seu Jorge, is fantastic).  In this sense, you get exactly what you want out of the film.  Even all the claymation-animated creatures that fill up the sea here are a visual delight.  I do think that Anderson made a better film with a similar dynamic in "The Darjeeling Limited," but I also think that Bill Murray does a better job here than any of the leads in that film.  If this is your sort of film, you're going to really enjoy "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou."  If you're not completely sold on Wes Anderson's films, this isn't the one I'd use to change your mind with, but it's not a bad choice, either.

3.5 / 5 - DVD

The Darjeeling Limited - 2007

"The Darjeeling Limited" - 2007
Dir. by Wes Anderson - 1 hr. 31 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I can understand some of the criticism of this movie, that suggested that it's just another Wes Anderson movie on the subject of father issues, but no one seems to hold against filmmakers who beat the romance-trouble story to death, so I'm not going to hold that against Anderson.  And more to the point, his films up to this point have been different enough from each other, and also represent a steady refining of the subject matter and approach to the subject matter.  I get it if you jumped off-board before "The Darjeeling Limited," but I also think that it's the true gem of Anderson's movies to date.

"The Darjeeling Limited" is preceded by a short film entitled "Hotel Chevalier," about a post-breakup meeting in a Paris hotel room between Jack (Jason Schwartzman) and the unnamed girlfriend that Jack has fled from (Natalie Portman).  It would be possible to stick just to the main movie, but "Hotel Chevalier" does settle the issue of whether or not Jack is a fiction writer (sort of a running gag throughout "Darjeeling").  And, it does offer a stunning view of Natalie Portman, which is worth mentioning.  "The Darjeeling Limited" starts off with a title card saying "Part 2," so you probably should just include "Chevalier" in your viewing experience.

"The Darjeeling Limited" starts off with a cameo by Bill Murray, playing a businessman of some sort who is running late for his train in India.  He tries to run it down, and not only fails, but is also outrun by Peter (Adrien Brody), who manages to outrun Murray and successfully catch the titular train.  Peter is one of the three Whitman brothers, whom he is joining on the train for some sort of spiritual journey organized by Francis (Owen Wilson).  The brothers pop and trade prescription pills, and smoke and drink constantly, although they never seem to lose their composure.  Francis' face is swathed in bandages and walks with a cane, due to a motorcycle accident that leads him to wonder why he and his brothers aren't close (the impetus behind the trip).  There's real tension between the brothers, they take turns telling each other secrets to the people they're supposed to be keeping secrets from almost as revenge on each other.

As is standard with Anderson's films, the key word here is "melancholy."  The characters are uniformly unhappy, although they have their own distinct reasons (and reactions) to their circumstances.  There's a bit of dialogue between Francis and his assistant Brendan, when the train gets lost (yes, really) that Francis sells like it's the big point of the journey.  Brendan tells him, "We haven't located us yet."  While true, the line that gets more to the heart of the matter comes from Jack, after he and his brothers being kicked off the train for persistent misbehavior, is asked by Rita (Amara Karan) what's the matter with him.  Jack thinks for a second, and replies, "Let me think about that.  I'll tell you the next time I see you."  This is the entire point of the movie: the three brothers have shut down following the death of their father, and seem incapable of moving forward.  In a fantastic visual metaphor, the three brothers travel everywhere using their father's luggage (or baggage, if you prefer).  It's a pretty extensive set, and the idea of travelling that heavily is ludicrous, but that point seems lost on them.  They have all reached a point in their lives where nothing is working, not even their relationships with each other, and they've got to sort out their past in order to escape it.  There's a strong parallel to Bill Murray's character in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," but instead of facing down a lifetime of mistakes closer to the end of their lives than the beginning, they're adults with a lot of years left in front of them.

The characters' narcotic-assisted self-indulgent navel-gazing yields problematic results, and it's not until only partially-averting a tragedy do the brothers have a chance to put their own behavior into perspective.  This renews their resolve to see through the actual reason for their trip: to track down their long-disappeared mother.  There are a number of really heart-breaking scenes in this film, and two biggest are the tragedy in an Indian village (which finally forces the brothers into action of any kind), and their interaction with their mother (Anjelica Huston).  They aren't particularly welcome; she asked them not to come, and reluctantly takes them into the convent that she's teaching at.  When she's finally pressed on why she abandoned them, she replies with a detour - a suggestion that they can communicate better without words.  It's an admission than there's no answer that's going to be sufficient, and that she's not particularly interested in hearing about the results of her actions, either.  So when she's gone without a word or explanation in the morning, it's not a surprise, but it's a confirmation that they've already gotten everything from her that they are going to get.

For such a heavy movie, the visuals are another issue entirely.  Instead of mirroring the darkness of the tone of the story, "The Darjeeling Limited" is alive with color.  Every time I've watched this film, I've found myself at some point just marveling at the colors.  They're not garish, either.  There is simply always one overwhelming color choice made, and then there's the minuscule details that one has come to expect from a Wes Anderson movie.  It simply appears to be a truly different world, which is the case.  On a similar note, the soundtrack choices are in the usual Anderson wheelhouse (a trio of vintage The Kinks tracks and a similar vintage The Rolling Stones song are present, along with a lot of Indian film songs), but they're not obvious choices, and add a considerable amount of atmosphere to the movie.  As for the acting, it's so closely tied to the story, and that seems like a victory.  As I mentioned before, the brothers all act out under the pressure of the weight they're all struggling under.  Jack finds solace in women, Peter is a sort of kleptomaniac, and Francis reverts to his attempts to control everyone (and we find out where he gets it from, too).  Despite the stylized dialogue, the characters feel real, as do the tensions between them.

"The Darjeeling Limited" is my favorite film by Wes Anderson so far.  I've enjoyed all of his work, but in this case I don't want to play along with the "I liked your first album best" instinct.  This movie feels like a distillation of and improvement on what the previous films have been dancing around, and with a fantastic backdrop to boot.

4.5 / 5 - DVD