Long-legged Adrien Brody in pink boxer shirts and a button down oxford shirt, Jason Schwartzman in a plush yellow bathrobe from the Hotel Chevalier, Owen Wilson's already spectacular face loosely held together by an assortment of bandages: Wes Anderson fills the frame with these visually striking, gifted actors in The Darjeeling Limited. They make an arresting portrait, the semi-deranged brothers, side by side, on a train trip that takes them across India on a spiritual journey intended to bring them closer together. The sight of them is cause for repeated delight.

Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited is a wonderful film. It's a pleasure to write that sentence. I want to write it again. The Darjeeling Limited is a wonderful film -- both funny and affecting. In recent years, Anderson seemed to have gone way off the rails. He was praised over the moon for an American Express commercial that was nothing more than a clever homage to Francois Truffaut's Day For Night. The gifted director of Rushmore (1998) and Bottle Rocket (1996) became tragically bogged down -- if not drowned -- in a flood of quirk.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) featured a memorable sprawling submarine diorama, Bill Murray, and a long list of talented others wearing funny red caps and blue jumpsuits, but lacked a coherent story. The Royal Tennebaums (2001) took off from where Rushmore (1998) began. Instead of one heartbreaking, empathetic, conflicted genius -- the unforgettable Max Fisher (a teen-aged Jason Schwartzman) -- there were four, all of them clamoring for attention. Wes Anderson films were hijacked by whimsy: clever props, hipster soundtracks, jaw dropping casting, terrific costume design, but stories that suffered from obsession with all the wrong details. The characters suffered. There was no one to care for, no reason to care.

Much, Much More Than A Sum of Quirk

Not true for The Darjeeling Limited. The trio of brothers is far more than a shallow sum of costumes, quirks (and wow, there are quirks), and their extraordinary monogrammed luggage set (designed by Marc Jacobs for the film). The screenplay, co-written by under-appreciated Roman Coppola (CQ), indulges in trademark Anderson attention to the idiosyncratic; after a surprising turn in the second half, however, the film successfully goes much deeper. What begins as a laugh-filled exotic adventure evolves into a moving journey.

After he nearly dies in a motorcycle accident, oldest brother Francis (Wilson) summons his younger brothers Peter (Brody) and Jack (Schwartzman) to travel through India on the lush, old fashioned, vividly blue Darjeeling Limited. The brothers agree to bond, but despite repeated shared helpings of unprescribed Indian pharmaceuticals, the fractured nature of the relationships between siblings threatens to thwart their good intentions. Confidences exchanged in secret are fast betrayed; gifts are given only to taken be away, including a six thousand dollar leather belt that later gets put to hilarious use.

Various manic antics take place on the train: Francis provides laminated schedules prepared by his bald assistant who is kept hidden behind the scenes, Peter brings a poisonous snake into their compartment, Jack engages in an affair with the lovely savory snack train hostess Rita (Amara Karan in a remarkable screen debut). It's only after the brothers are asked to leave the train that the jokes subside and explanations for their weaknesses are explored. An expertly placed flashback reveals them in the early stages of an all too real grief.

Angelica Huston makes an understated appearance as the mother who left them all to become a nun in the Himalayas. Bill Murray shows up for a cameo, and Barbet Schroeder plays an automobile mechanic. The fleeting image of Natalie Portman in a montage sequence can be explained by Anderson's prequel The Hotel Chevalier, a short film which screened at the New York Film Festival before Darjeeling but unfortunately won't be showing when the film is released in theaters on September 29.