the darjeeling limited – 2 stars

nothing’s more sad than seeing an artist you used to love get less and less good at the things that made you love them. i ADORE rushmore as a film, because it was a quirky love story told in a visually interesting way. i really liked tenenbaums too, because it was a quirky portrait of a family full of great characters, even if there wasn’t quite as much of a satisfying story arc.

i think from there it’s gone downhill, as mr. anderson has since devolved in terms of storytelling and spiraled out of control into his own quirky visual style of film-making. i was pretty strongly disappointed with life aquatic because as much as i wanted to like it, i was honestly bored by it. i’ve been told, ‘but the style matched so well with the emotions of the character’, to which i counter, ‘yes, but i didn’t like the character either. that’s the problem.’

with darjeeling, which is at least only 90 minutes, i find the same problems continuing to disappoint me. instead of applying his stylish eye for detail to a strong narrative, all you really get for your 12 bucks is an hour and a half of some spoiled rich people aimlessly trying to ‘figure themselves out’, who you don’t necessarily like or care about in the beginning, and who the script never bothers making you care much about by the end.

it looks nice and there’s good music, but when the slow motion dancing happens at the end of rushmore it feels like a triumphant moment. when the same visual trick gets dragged out with three brothers running in slow motion to catch a train in darjeeling, i was mostly just glad it meant the movie was over.