Double Feature: The Virgin Suicides and The Darjeeling Limited

It just so happened that these were the two movies I currently had from Netflix and on our day off, Elise and I decided to watch both of them. I hadn't seen either of them yet but both were movies I had previously made plans to watch but just never got around to it.

I didn't really expect that these two particular movies would go as well together as they actually did. But after thinking about it for a little while, I thought why wouldn't they? They're both directed by contemporary "indie" filmmakers that are popular with a lot of kids my age. One was a tried and true classic while the other was a new film that came out with mixed reviews. Both directors have a love for Bill Murray (one of the reasons I love them so much).

Something that caught me by surprise, though, was that they both had suicide written all over them. The Virgin Suicides is obvious, but I had forgotten about Owen Wilson's attempt just after The Darjeeling Limited came out. It kind of weirded me out going from watching all of these sisters commit suicide to Darjeeling where Wilson was apparently going through his own real life troubles. Suicide aside though, the movies work really well together because there are so many commonalities between them. Family problems, sex, identity, searching, and foreign people just to name a few. There were definitely a lot of parallels.

That being said, I really liked both movies. I expected to like The Virgin Suicides because I love Sofia Coppola's other movies (Lost In Translation is utter perfection). However The Darjeeling Limited had me a bit concerned. I had heard various things about it and not all of them were good. Some said this was Wes Anderson's worst movie and that he wasn't progressing, just churning out the same old thing. I must say I'm pretty shocked that anyone could say that. This movie is such a departure from his previous movies. In Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic, there was always a slight suspension of reality. Everything was a little too over the top and exaggerated so that it was never totally believable. The Darjeeling Limited is probably Anderson's most down to earth movie and because of that, I thought it was one of his most successful creations.