The Darjeeling Limited is a Wes Anderson movie. That might seem like the most boring sentence ever to be committed to precious internet bytes, but it’s important because the director’s 5^th film is inescapably his own - 100% pure, uncut Anderson. If you don’t dig his style, there’s no chance that you will have fun aboard the Darjeeling.

 It’s fair to say that with his previous movie (2004’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou) Anderson had gotten a little too comfortable. The ensemble cast was so huge that characters were given inadequate screen time, which weakened the emotional pull of the story, which made things all a little meaningless. Bill Murray was solid as usual but, nevertheless, Zissou hit the water with a bit too much of a splash.

 Perhaps sensing that things had spiralled a bit out of control, the focus in The Darjeeling Limited has been stripped right back to three characters – brothers, travelling together across India on the titular train for a punt at spiritual enlightenment. When we meet them, Francis (Owen Wilson) is recovering from a violent motorbike accident, Peter (Adrian Brody) is having cold feet about his upcoming baby, and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) can’t seem to forget his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman). And what’s more, none of the three are over the recent death of their father. Troubled families are an Anderson special, and he possesses the gift of condensing years of strain into just a few stoic words or a burnt-out expression.

He also has the gift of switching from comedy to drama before you’d even realised. Light-hearted moments are often followed immediately by small, tragic ones, which then give way to another gag. It sometimes seems difficult to keep up, until you realise that it’s exactly this contradictory sweet and sour tone that Anderson is pitching at.

 Behind the brothers almost the whole time is India, and even the scenes aboard the train were shot on location, slowly clumbering across the subcontinent. The India in Darjeeling is one that is rural, wild, and apparently underpopulated – an India where tigers pad softly in the night and raging rivers cut swaths across the landscape. Once again Anderson has created a story-book version of his world, from the theatrical poisonous snake cage right down to the paint job aboard the Darjeeling Limited itself. 

Also appearing in short cameos are Angelica Houston as the boys’ elusive mother, Zissou veteran Waris Ahluwalia, and Bill Murray in a tantalisingly short cameo that makes you want to picket his house to get him making films again. In lieu of collaboration with regular composer Mark (Devo) Mothersbaugh, Anderson this time employs scores from classic Indian films to accompany his visuals – although you’d barely notice, so Mothersbaugh-sounding are his choices. 

Anderson’s strength is his ability to hint at the profound without ever vocalising it, leaving the viewer thinking that they something meaningful, but without any real clues as to why. Sure, it’s obviously a story about the bonds that hold families together (or keep them apart), but Anderson manages to lace Darjeeling with something more – the tantalising prospect of something grand, just waiting under the surface. Spiritual enlightenment? Maybe. It might take a train ride to find out, though.

The Darjeeling Limited is on DVD release now.