Well, the excitement is over for another 8 months or so before Oscar Season starts again, so now I can go back to movies totally unrelated to the Academy Awards.

This week, in honor of the release of The Grand Budapest Hotel, I am going to be highlighting one of my absolute favorite Wes Anderson films: The Darjeeling Limited.

The Darjeeling Limited was released in 2007. It was at a time when I didn’t know who Wes Anderson was, so out of blatant curiosity, I picked it up at Blockbuster not really knowing what to expect, but I took it home and fell in love with it. From the short film at the beginning, Hotel Chevalier, starring just Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman, to the final frame, the movie is a beautiful tale of forgiveness, family, brotherhood, and the idea of finding yourself.

Owen Wilson plays Francis, a man whose face is as bruised and broken as his bonds with his brothers, so he plans a train trip throughout India for him and his brothers, Peter and Jack, played by Adrian Brody and Schwartzman respectively.

Throughout the journey, Francis hopes they can reconnect as brothers, and to also find their mother who has disappeared to become a nun in a monastery somewhere in India.

The movie is one of Anderson’s most beautiful, with the vibrant colors of the culture in India that pop off of the screen, or the endless landscapes that past by the train window. I also feel like it is his most true and believable plots, with real characters who experience real pain.

I watch this movie at least once a year. It always offers something new and it reminds us that we are all on a train in life, with the occasional stop along the way to get a grasp on where we are going and where we have been.

So if you consider yourself an Anderson fan and can’t wait to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel, I highly recommend checking this one out.