“All Aboard the Mystery Train” (select passages)
IF WES Anderson was a shopkeeper he would deal in curiosities, junk and antiques: elephant’s foot hat-stands, dollhouses and model trains, and records, on vinyl, in protective PVC envelopes. In the American sense of the word, he is a thrift-store filmmaker, operating away from the main drag, just out of town, and taking great pleasure in the everyday stuff most people don’t value….
And it is a beautiful trip, pitched somewhere between The Monkees and an early Jim Jarmusch movie, with flickers of silent comedy thrown in. Oddly, amid such conspicuous design, much of the dialogue feels improvised, but the film does meander towards a point: something to do with forgiveness and acceptance, and the unspoken ties of brotherhood. But with Anderson, the point isn’t really the point.