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The Darjeeling Limited ***

Brothers and other strangers ride The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's captivating road movie that views life as a Great Train of Being. Individuals may be locked inside their private emotional compartments while the world whizzes past, yet they are linked to others, whether by fate, joy, blood - and, in some cases, a railcar hitch.

Brothers and other strangers ride

The Darjeeling Limited

, Wes Anderson's captivating road movie that views life as a Great Train of Being. Individuals may be locked inside their private emotional compartments while the world whizzes past, yet they are linked to others, whether by fate, joy, blood - and, in some cases, a railcar hitch.

Or by melancholy, like the estranged Whitman brothers. A year after their father has passed on, Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson), the eldest, organizes a railway trip across India so that he, middle brother Peter (Adrien Brody), and baby Jack (Jason Schwartzman) can get to know one another as adults.

The more Francis, survivor of a near-death accident, asks his brothers to say yes to new experiences, the more they say no no no no no. The more Francis extends himself, the more his siblings shrink from his grasping hugs. The more Francis micromanages the brothers' spiritual quest, the more the heavens (and the audience) laugh at his presumption. Imagine the Marx Brothers on a religious pilgrimage, the Three Stooges slam-dancing to classic Kinks songs.

I admit that prior to Darjeeling, I have more admired than enjoyed Anderson's films. Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic struck me as hermetically sealed excursions into the angst and milieus of privileged kids and their parents, elegantly designed as rooms in a fancy dollhouse.

Darjeeling, cowritten by Anderson and cousins Schwartzman and Roman Coppola, opens the window and lets in sun, oxygen, and the "spicy" smell that Peter identifies as India's particular scent. Through the character of Francis, Anderson, control-freak director, lets the unplanned and unmanaged tumble on the screen.

The brothers travel across Rajasthan, in India's north, with an Everest of luggage and a pharmacopeia of over-the-counter treatments. They self-medicate so as not to feel.

Francis clearly has trouble (his "accident" may have been a botched suicide, a plot development uncomfortably close to Wilson's recent real-life suicide attempt); his brothers have women troubles.

As they hurtle past the spectacular Thar Desert, they rub salt, and masala, too, in wounds still raw from childhood, and the fresher ones of Dad's demise. It's the classic sibling drama: The eldest bosses the others around; the middle one rebels, and the youngest emotionally detaches.

It takes some time before they get outside their own petty fights and see their dynamic mirrored in the life-and-death situation of three Indian boys, brothers, drowning in a river. When the competition of Dad-always-loved-me-best and I-have-Dad's-belt stops, something very moving happens.

Finally, Darjeeling is a movie about people who literally carry a lot of emotional baggage, metaphorically unpack it, and spiritually lighten their loads. By the end, I felt lighter. Which is closer to enlightenment than most movies get.

The Darjeeling Limited *** (out of four stars)

Directed by Wes Anderson. With Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Amara Karan, Natalie Portman, Bill Murray, Irfan Khan, and Anjelica Huston. Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 31 mins.

Parent's guide: R (sex, drug use, profanity)

Playing at: Ritz East

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