Grief? Depression? Ambiguity in a Paris hotel room. Jack Whitman lies on a bed, ordering a grilled cheese sandwich from room service. His phone rings; it's a woman he had wanted to forget, on her way to see him, a surprise. He readies the room, moving without affect, drawing a bath, changing his clothes. She arrives, as does the food, and the complications of their relationship emerge in bits and pieces. He invites her out on the balcony to see his view. Will they make love? Is the relationship over?
Written & Directed by Wes Anderson
Released (theatrically) on October 26, 2007
prologue and Pt. 1 to The Darjeeling Limited
Hotel Chevalier, the thirteen-minute short film that acts as a prologue to Wes Anderson's
The Darjeeling Limited, is now (was once) available for free on iTunes. It features a heartbroken Jason Schwartzman holed up in a Paris hotel room trying to forget an ex-lover, played by Natalie Portman. She shows up, asks how long he has stayed in the hotel, before becoming awkwardly intimate again, soundtracked by "Where Do You Go (My Lovely)" by sixties folkie Peter Sarstedt (who almost certainly would've been more popular if only his name were easier to spell). Amazingly, Schwartzman — who co-wrote
Darjeeling — had absolutely nothing to do with the script for
Chevalier.