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The Darjeeling Limited
Directed by	Wes Anderson
Written by	Wes Anderson Roman Coppola Jason Schwartzman
Starring	Owen Wilson Adrien Brody Jason Schwartzman Anjelica Huston Natalie Portman Bill Murray
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release dates	September 29 2007 (limited) October 5, 2007
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$17,500,000 US (approximately)

Template:Infobox movie certificates

The Darjeeling Limited is a comedy-drama film of a journey through India by three brothers, played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman. The fifth feature film by director Wes Anderson, it was written by him, Roman Coppola and Schwartzman. The film also stars Waris Ahluwalia, Amara Karan, Barbet Schroeder and Anjelica Huston, with Natalie Portman, Irfan Khan and Bill Murray in cameo roles.

Plot

Three estranged brothers, Francis, Peter and Jack, take a train ride through India a year after the death of their father. The fictional long-distance train "Darjeeling Limited", apparently named after the short narrow-gauge Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, provides the backdrop for the brothers trying to grow closer together.

Hotel Chevalier

Wes Anderson also wrote and directed the 2007 short film Hotel Chevalier, starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman. The 13-minute film acts as a prologue to The Darjeeling Limited. Originally attached to festival screenings of The Darjeeling Limited, it was removed during the limited theatrical release and instead made available on Apple's iTunes Store as a free download. On October 26, 2007, Hotel Chevalier was removed from iTunes in favor of releasing it in theaters with the wide release of The Darjeeling Limited.

Themes and Motifs

As with any Wes Anderson film, The Darjeeling Limited continues to include many of Anderson's signature themes and styles. Forbidden love, parental abandonment and/or death, sibling rivalries, timeless fashions and props, etc.

Release

The Darjeeling Limited had its world premiere on September 3, 2007 at the Venice Film Festival, where it was in competition for the Golden Lion. The film's North American premiere was on September 28, 2007 at the 45th annual New York Film Festival, where it was the opening film. It then opened in a limited commercial release in North America on October 5, 2007. The film was released nationwide on October 26, 2007, preceded in showings by Hotel Chevalier.

Box office performance

The film grossed $134,938 in 2 theaters in its opening weekend for an average of $67,469 for each theater.

Critical reception

The film received generally favorable reviews. As of November 14, 2007 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 66% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 132 reviews, with a consensus among critics that the film "will satisfy Wes Anderson fans." On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 67 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.

Chris Cabin of Filmcritic.com gave the film 4 stars out of 5 and described Anderson's film as "the auteur's best work to date." Entertainment Weekly film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film a "B+" and said "This is psychological as well as stylistic familiar territory for Anderson after Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. But there's a startling new maturity in Darjeeling, a compassion for the larger world that busts the confines of the filmmaker's miniaturist instincts." Armond White of the New York Press said the film "is so reflective of personal experience (within the context of rarefied pop antecedents) that it returns common emotional power to today’s fragmented, disingenuous popular culture.." A.O. Scott of The New York Times said the film "is unstintingly fussy, vain and self-regarding. But it is also a treasure: an odd, flawed, but nonetheless beautifully handmade object as apt to win affection as to provoke annoyance. You might say that it has sentimental value."

Timothy Knight of Reel.com gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and said "Although The Darjeeling Limited pales in comparison to Anderson's best film, Rushmore (1998), it's still a vast improvement over his last, and worst film, 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)." Nathan Lee of The Village Voice wrote "A companion piece to Tenenbaums more than a step in new directions, Darjeeling is a movie about people trapped in themselves and what it takes to get free—a movie, quite literally, about letting go of your baggage." The Christian Science Monitor critic Peter Rainer said "Wes Anderson doesn't make movies like anybody else, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not. His latest, The Darjeeling Limited, combines what's best and worst about him." New York Magazine critic David Edelstein said the film is "hit and miss, but its tone of lyric melancholy is remarkably sustained."

Nick Schager of Slant Magazine gave the film 2 stars out of 4 and said "the ingredients that have increasingly defined Wes Anderson's films...seem, with The Darjeeling Limited, to have become something like limitations." Film critic Emanuel Levy gave the film a "C" and said "Going to India and collaborating with two new writers do little to invigorate or reenergize director Wes Anderson in The Darjeeling Limited, because he imposes the same themes, self-conscious approach, and serio-comic sensibility of his previous films on the new one, confining his three lost brothers not only within his limited world, but also within a limited space, a train compartment." Levy also said "after reaching a nadir with his last feature, the $50 million folly The Life Aquatic of Steve Zisou , which was an artistic and commercial flop, Anderson could only go upward." Dana Stevens of Slate magazine wrote, "Maybe Anderson needs to shoot someone else's screenplay, to get outside his own head for a while and into another's sensibility. It's telling that his funniest and liveliest recent work was a commercial for American Express." Kyle Smith of the New York Post gave the film 1 1/2 stars out of 4 and said "At a stage in Anderson’s career when he should be moving on, he is instead circling back."

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features three songs by The Kinks, "Powerman", "Strangers" and "This Time Tomorrow", all from the 1970 album, Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, as well as "Play With Fire" by The Rolling Stones. Most of the album, however, features film score music composed by Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray and other artists from the cinema of India. The works include "Charu's Theme", from Ray's 1964 film, Charulata, film-score cues by Shankar Jaikishan and classic works by Alexis Weissenberg, Claude Debussy and Ludwig van Beethoven.

References

1. October 26, 2007 Charlie Rose interview (10 minutes+)
2. Brooks, Brian (2007). "NYFF '07 | Wes Anderson's "Darjeeling" to Open 45th New York Film Festival; Coen's "Country" In Centerpiece Slot". indieWIRE. Retrieved 2007-08-27. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
3. http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyff.html Retrieved 2007-09-30
4. Bain, Mia (2007). "Movies by De Palma, Haggis and Ang Lee in competition at Venice film fest". International Herald Tribune. Retrieved 2007-07-26. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
5. "The Darjeeling Limited (2007) - Weekend Box Office". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-09-30.
6. "The Darjeeling Limited - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2007-11-14.
7. "Darjeeling Limited, The (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-11-14.
8. Chris Cabin. "The Darjeeling Limited Movie Review, DVD Release - Filmcritic.com". Filmcritic.com. Retrieved 2007-09-30.
9. Lisa Schwarzbaum (2007-09-26). "The Darjeeling Limited". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Text "Entertainment Weekly" ignored (help); Text "Movie Review" ignored (help)
10. Armond White. "MY THREE STOOGES". New York Press. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
11. A.O. Scott (2007-09-28). "The Darjeeling Limited - Movie - Review - New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
12. Timothy Knight. "The Darjeeling Limited (2007)". Reel.com. Retrieved 2007-09-30.
13. Nathan Lee (2007-09-25). "Strangers on a Train". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
14. Peter Rainer (2007-09-28). "'Darjeeling' of 'limited' appeal". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
15. David Edelstein. "The Darjeeling Limited". New York Magazine. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
16. Nick Schager (2007-09-20). "The Darjeeling Limited". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
17. Emanuel Levy. "Film Review - Darjeeling Limited, The". EmanuelLevy.com. Retrieved 2007-09-30.
18. Dana Stevens (2007-09-27). "Twee Time". Slate. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
19. Kyle Smith (2007-09-26). "WES MESS VERY 'LIMITED'". New York Post. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

• Official page at Fox Searchlight
• IONCINEMA.com interview with Wes Anderson
• The Darjeeling Limited at IMDb
• The Darjeeling Limited at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Darjeeling Limited at Metacritic
• The Darjeeling Limited at Box Office Mojo
• Template:Amg movie
• The Darjeeling Limited movie trailer - Times Online
• Owen Wilson mentions the film in an interview
• Steely Dan publicly offers Anderson musical contributions for the film
• The Darjeeling Limited Trailer

• 2007 films
• American films
• English-language films
• Comedy-drama films
• Films shot anamorphically
• Films directed by Wes Anderson
• Rail transport in fiction