Follow my advice: Take a break from midterms, grab some friends and go see The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's latest film at the Embassy in Waltham. From the director and writer of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited is, as expected, basically a quintessential Anderson film. Damaged characters, melancholy storylines and emotional soundtracks combine to create the darker tones below the light and comical movie Anderson inevitably produces. Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrian Brody) and Jack Whitman (Jason Schwartzman) are three brothers still lost with grief a year after their father's death. While their mother, Angelica Huston, has run off to become a nun, the three brothers Whitman have not spoken to each other since the funeral to which they arrived late together. A year later, at Francis' request, they meet on the Darjeeling Limited train for a spiritual journey through India. The extremely wealthy brothers pack their belongings in their father's old and orange monogrammed suitcases-literally dragging their emotional baggage along with them.

Rare as it may be, Owen Wilson plays a real character, not "Owen Wilson," and he is good at it. Intentionally or not, by covering Wilson's nose with a bandage throughout the film, Anderson has covered the slow, immature and carefree Wilson of movies past. Wilson plays the physically damaged, controlling and continuously insecure Francis Whitman, the oldest of the three. A successful businessman of some kind, Francis brings along his assistant Brendan, who provides them with laminated itineraries each morning of the ride.

The most conventional of the three, middle child Peter Whitman, is a married man expecting his first child, although he neglects to tell his wife he is going to India. Youngest brother Jack is in the midst of a love-hate relationship with his girlfriend (played by Natalie Portman in the short-film prequel to TDL, "Hotel Chevalier") and hasn't been to America since his father's funeral. A short-story writer, the majority of Jack's "fictional" work is based entirely on his brother's lives.

Anderson's three leads play off each other well. Wilson's enthusiasm, Schwartzman's cynicism and Brody's apathy combine for good character balance on screen. Schwartzman in a yellow Hotel Chevalier robe, Wilson's face completely bandaged and the long-legged Brody in pink boxer shorts, a button-down Oxford shirt and his father's oversized sunglasses make for an aesthetically funny bunch. As can be expected from any Anderson film, every detail is impeccably placed and perfect.

Although all Anderson films seem at times slow and often devoid of any action, The Darjeeling Limited chugs along quicker than most and never stops long enough to bore. Anderson's esoteric sense of humor appears as usual in clever dialogue rather than in apparent jokes. While there are a few good laughs, the majority of the humor takes place in passing and is too subtle to draw huge laughs from the audience. The Darjeeling Limited is most definitely the lightest of Anderson's recent films and actually ends on an upbeat note, a first for Anderson. Overall good acting, clever screenplay and aesthetic brilliance make The Darjeeling Limited is one train worth getting on.