The Darjeeling Limited
Encyclopedia
The Darjeeling Limited is a 2007 comedy-drama
film directed by Wes Anderson
, and starring Owen Wilson
, Adrien Brody
, and Jason Schwartzman
. It was written by Anderson, Schwartzman, and Roman Coppola
. The film also features Waris Ahluwalia
, Amara Karan
, Barbet Schroeder
, and Anjelica Huston
, with Natalie Portman
, Camilla Rutherford
, Irrfan Khan and Bill Murray
in cameo roles.
) runs after but fails to catch his train as it pulls out of a station in India. He is beaten to it by a younger man, Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody
), who is carrying heavy luggage. Peter reunites with his brothers Francis (Owen Wilson
) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman
) on the luxury train called "The Darjeeling Limited", which is traveling across India
. The brothers have not seen each other since their father's funeral a year earlier in New York.
Francis, the oldest of the three brothers, has planned their journey in advance. The journey is supposed to culminate in a reunion with their mother (Anjelica Huston
), who is running a convent in the foothills of the Himalayas. Francis conceals the real reason for the trip, telling his brothers that they are making the journey for spiritual
self-discovery. Francis' brothers are not convinced of this, and get annoyed with Francis' controlling behaviour such as choosing from the menu for them, which turns out to be a trait inherited from their mother. With his assistant Brendan's help, Francis draws up a detailed itinerary for the trip. He also takes his brothers' passports to prevent them from getting off the train too early. Francis, who was badly injured in a motorcycle accident, wears bandages on his head throughout the film. The youngest Whitman, Jack, has written a short story which is strikingly similar to his own life. However, he denies those similarities. Jack obsessively listens to the messages on his ex-girlfriend's answering machine at every stop the train makes. Moreover, he has a fling with the train's beautiful stewardess Rita (Amara Karan
), whom Francis nicknames "Sweet Lime" for the drinks she repeatedly offers.
Peter, the middle brother, justifies his keeping many of his late father's possessions, including his spectacles, which he wears even though they are not the right prescription, by claiming that he was their father's favorite. His wife, Alice (Camilla Rutherford
), is expecting a baby, but Peter fears that their relationship may end in divorce.
At first, the three brothers get high on a cocktail of locally made drugs and pharmaceutical products. In their trips through the Indian provinces, they visit temples and markets. At one market, Francis has one of his $3000 loafers stolen by a shoe-shine boy, and Peter buys a cobra, which later escapes from its transport container. This escape results in the brothers being confined to their cabins. Francis and Peter get into a fight over Peter being the "favorite" and Jack uses the pepper spray he bought in the village to mace his brothers until they stop fighting. This is the last straw for the train's Chief Steward (Waris Ahluwalia
), who is also Rita's boyfriend, and whom the three brothers have repeatedly annoyed. He throws the three of them off the train with all their luggage, leaving them in the desert. The three brothers become close again and even perform one of Francis' spiritual rituals. On their way back to civilization, they see three young boys get into trouble while attempting to pull a raft across a fast-flowing river. Jack and Francis rescue two of the boys, but Peter fails to save the third. This affects Peter deeply. In the boys' village, the three brothers are befriended by the villagers and attend the boy's funeral.
(In a flashback
,) the three brothers and Alice are on the way to their father's funeral. They stop on the way to pick up their father's Porsche from the repair shop and take it with them, but the car isn't ready yet so the brothers leave.
(Back in the present,) the Whitmans get on a bus, which takes them from the village to the airport. The brothers stop for a bathroom break, during which Francis removes his bandages to shave, which reveals a number of large, bright scars on his face, but his brothers offer marginal reserved comfort. However, just as they are getting on the plane, they change their minds and decide to go and visit their mother, even though she has sent them a message telling them that their visit is not convenient. The three brothers travel to their mother's convent. The reunion is very emotional (it is learned that Francis's accident was, in fact, a suicide attempt) and the family is reunited for a time. The next morning, the three brothers find that the mother has again left her family and her children.
On the way back the three brothers run for a just-departed train, and jettison all their baggage on the railway line as they and some porters run after the train. Jack reads his new short story, which tells the story of his meeting with his ex-girlfriend in the Hotel Chevalier, and gives in, accepting that it is representative of his own life.
Francis wants to give the passports back to his brothers, but they decide that they are safer with him. The Chief Steward (who has kept Peter's snake as a pet), the businessman from the beginning, and Jack's ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman
) look out contemplatively.
, starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman. The 13-minute film acts as a prologue to The Darjeeling Limited. In it, Jack's ex-girlfriend turns up unexpectedly at his hotel room in Paris
, and they spend the night together. Originally attached to festival screenings of The Darjeeling Limited, it was removed during the limited theatrical release and instead made available on Apple Inc.'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.
by Jean Renoir
, the films of Satyajit Ray
and documentaries on India by Louis Malle
were his inspirations for this movie. The film was dedicated to Satyajit Ray and makes allusions to him and his work (e.g., the portrait of Ray in the compartment of the train Bengal Lancer towards the end of the film).
In an homage shot, the three Whitman brothers are arranged in a row by the side of the train after it has broken down. This is a reference to an earlier Anderson film, Bottle Rocket
, where characters Dignan, Anthony and Bob are arranged as such for the cover.
, where it was in competition for the Golden Lion
and won the Little Golden Lion. The film's North American premiere was on 28 September 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 5 October 2007.
The film opened across North America
on 26 October 2007 and in the UK on 23 November 2007, in both territories preceded in showings by Hotel Chevalier. The film grossed $134,938 in two theaters in its opening weekend for an average of $67,469 for each theater. The film (widescreen edition) was released on DVD 26 February 2008 on Fox Searchlight, with features limited to a behind-the-scenes documentary, theatrical trailer, and the inclusion of Hotel Chevalier.
The film was re-released by the Criterion Collection on 12 October 2010 on both DVD
and Blu-Ray, the latter being the film's first release on the format.
, 66% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 158 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 35 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." A.O. Scott of The New York Times
said that 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 that 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." 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 [sic], 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 stars out of 4 and said "At a stage in Anderson’s career when he should be moving on, he is instead circling back."
Glenn Kenny of Premiere
named it the 5th best film of 2007, and Mike Russell of The Oregonian
named it the 8th best film of 2007.
, "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
. "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)
" by Peter Sarstedt
is prominently featured as well, being played within the film more than once. Most of the album, however, features film score
music composed by Bengal
i filmmaker Satyajit Ray
, Merchant-Ivory films, and other artists from Indian cinema
. Director Wes Anderson has said that it was Satyajit Ray's movies that made him want to come to India. The works include "Charu's Theme", from Ray's 1964 film, Charulata
, film-score cues by Shankar Jaikishan
and classic works by Claude Debussy
and Ludwig van Beethoven
. The film ends with the 1969 song "Les Champs Élysées" by French singer Joe Dassin
, who was the son of blacklisted American director Jules Dassin
.
, Rajasthan
. The Himalaya scenes were shot in Udaipur
, and the opening scene of the film was also shot on the streets of Jodhpur. The International Airport shown near the end is the old terminal building of Udaipur Airport
. The scenes set in New York were shot in Long Island City.
Indian Railways does not operate a luxury train named The Darjeeling Limited, but it operates luxury trains like Maharaja Express
, Royal Rajasthan on Wheels etc.
There is a train named "Darjeeling Mail" that operates between Sealdah
and New Jalpaiguri
, the nearest broad gauge
station to Darjeeling; see Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
and Darjeeling Mail
.
Comedy-drama
Comedy-drama is a genre of theatre, film and television programs which combines humorous and serious content.-Theatre:Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy...
film directed by Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials....
, and starring Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
, Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist . Winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 at age 29, he is the youngest actor to do so...
, and Jason Schwartzman
Jason Schwartzman
Jason Francesco Schwartzman is an American actor and musician. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Rushmore, Spun, I Heart Huckabees, Shopgirl, Marie Antoinette, The Darjeeling Limited, Funny People, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World...
. It was written by Anderson, Schwartzman, and Roman Coppola
Roman Coppola
Roman Coppola is an American film director and music video director.-Early life:Coppola was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, the son of set decorator/artist Eleanor Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola was born in the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine while his father was in Paris...
. The film also features Waris Ahluwalia
Waris Ahluwalia
Waris Ahluwalia |Punjab]], India, c. 1975) is an Indian-American jewelry designer and actor. He immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of five, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He is based in New York City but has also lived in Los Angeles and travels frequently to Rome,...
, Amara Karan
Amara Karan
Amara Karan is an English actress who made her film début as the love interest in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. The film premièred at the 2007 Venice Film Festival...
, Barbet Schroeder
Barbet Schroeder
Barbet Schroeder is a Franco-Swiss movie director and producer who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s, working together with directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.-Life and career:...
, and Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
, with Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
, Camilla Rutherford
Camilla Rutherford
Camilla Rutherford is an English actress and fashion model.-Background:Rutherford was born to a journalist father and magistrate mother in Holland Park...
, Irrfan Khan and Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
in cameo roles.
Plot
A North American businessman in India (Bill MurrayBill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
) runs after but fails to catch his train as it pulls out of a station in India. He is beaten to it by a younger man, Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist . Winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 at age 29, he is the youngest actor to do so...
), who is carrying heavy luggage. Peter reunites with his brothers Francis (Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman
Jason Schwartzman
Jason Francesco Schwartzman is an American actor and musician. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Rushmore, Spun, I Heart Huckabees, Shopgirl, Marie Antoinette, The Darjeeling Limited, Funny People, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World...
) on the luxury train called "The Darjeeling Limited", which is traveling across India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. The brothers have not seen each other since their father's funeral a year earlier in New York.
Francis, the oldest of the three brothers, has planned their journey in advance. The journey is supposed to culminate in a reunion with their mother (Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
), who is running a convent in the foothills of the Himalayas. Francis conceals the real reason for the trip, telling his brothers that they are making the journey for spiritual
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
self-discovery. Francis' brothers are not convinced of this, and get annoyed with Francis' controlling behaviour such as choosing from the menu for them, which turns out to be a trait inherited from their mother. With his assistant Brendan's help, Francis draws up a detailed itinerary for the trip. He also takes his brothers' passports to prevent them from getting off the train too early. Francis, who was badly injured in a motorcycle accident, wears bandages on his head throughout the film. The youngest Whitman, Jack, has written a short story which is strikingly similar to his own life. However, he denies those similarities. Jack obsessively listens to the messages on his ex-girlfriend's answering machine at every stop the train makes. Moreover, he has a fling with the train's beautiful stewardess Rita (Amara Karan
Amara Karan
Amara Karan is an English actress who made her film début as the love interest in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. The film premièred at the 2007 Venice Film Festival...
), whom Francis nicknames "Sweet Lime" for the drinks she repeatedly offers.
Peter, the middle brother, justifies his keeping many of his late father's possessions, including his spectacles, which he wears even though they are not the right prescription, by claiming that he was their father's favorite. His wife, Alice (Camilla Rutherford
Camilla Rutherford
Camilla Rutherford is an English actress and fashion model.-Background:Rutherford was born to a journalist father and magistrate mother in Holland Park...
), is expecting a baby, but Peter fears that their relationship may end in divorce.
At first, the three brothers get high on a cocktail of locally made drugs and pharmaceutical products. In their trips through the Indian provinces, they visit temples and markets. At one market, Francis has one of his $3000 loafers stolen by a shoe-shine boy, and Peter buys a cobra, which later escapes from its transport container. This escape results in the brothers being confined to their cabins. Francis and Peter get into a fight over Peter being the "favorite" and Jack uses the pepper spray he bought in the village to mace his brothers until they stop fighting. This is the last straw for the train's Chief Steward (Waris Ahluwalia
Waris Ahluwalia
Waris Ahluwalia |Punjab]], India, c. 1975) is an Indian-American jewelry designer and actor. He immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of five, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He is based in New York City but has also lived in Los Angeles and travels frequently to Rome,...
), who is also Rita's boyfriend, and whom the three brothers have repeatedly annoyed. He throws the three of them off the train with all their luggage, leaving them in the desert. The three brothers become close again and even perform one of Francis' spiritual rituals. On their way back to civilization, they see three young boys get into trouble while attempting to pull a raft across a fast-flowing river. Jack and Francis rescue two of the boys, but Peter fails to save the third. This affects Peter deeply. In the boys' village, the three brothers are befriended by the villagers and attend the boy's funeral.
(In a flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
,) the three brothers and Alice are on the way to their father's funeral. They stop on the way to pick up their father's Porsche from the repair shop and take it with them, but the car isn't ready yet so the brothers leave.
(Back in the present,) the Whitmans get on a bus, which takes them from the village to the airport. The brothers stop for a bathroom break, during which Francis removes his bandages to shave, which reveals a number of large, bright scars on his face, but his brothers offer marginal reserved comfort. However, just as they are getting on the plane, they change their minds and decide to go and visit their mother, even though she has sent them a message telling them that their visit is not convenient. The three brothers travel to their mother's convent. The reunion is very emotional (it is learned that Francis's accident was, in fact, a suicide attempt) and the family is reunited for a time. The next morning, the three brothers find that the mother has again left her family and her children.
On the way back the three brothers run for a just-departed train, and jettison all their baggage on the railway line as they and some porters run after the train. Jack reads his new short story, which tells the story of his meeting with his ex-girlfriend in the Hotel Chevalier, and gives in, accepting that it is representative of his own life.
Francis wants to give the passports back to his brothers, but they decide that they are safer with him. The Chief Steward (who has kept Peter's snake as a pet), the businessman from the beginning, and Jack's ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
) look out contemplatively.
Hotel Chevalier
Anderson also wrote and directed the 2007 short film Hotel ChevalierHotel Chevalier
Hotel Chevalier is a short film written and directed by Wes Anderson and released in 2007. Starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman as former lovers who reunite in a Paris hotel room, the 13-minute film acts as a prologue to Anderson's 2007 feature The Darjeeling Limited...
, starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman. The 13-minute film acts as a prologue to The Darjeeling Limited. In it, Jack's ex-girlfriend turns up unexpectedly at his hotel room in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and they spend the night together. Originally attached to festival screenings of The Darjeeling Limited, it was removed during the limited theatrical release and instead made available on Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
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.
Cast
- Owen WilsonOwen WilsonOwen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
as Francis Whitman - Adrien BrodyAdrien BrodyAdrien Brody is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist . Winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 at age 29, he is the youngest actor to do so...
as Peter Whitman - Jason SchwartzmanJason SchwartzmanJason Francesco Schwartzman is an American actor and musician. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Rushmore, Spun, I Heart Huckabees, Shopgirl, Marie Antoinette, The Darjeeling Limited, Funny People, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World...
as Jack Whitman - Anjelica HustonAnjelica HustonAnjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
as Patricia - Waris AhluwaliaWaris AhluwaliaWaris Ahluwalia |Punjab]], India, c. 1975) is an Indian-American jewelry designer and actor. He immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of five, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He is based in New York City but has also lived in Los Angeles and travels frequently to Rome,...
as The Chief Steward - Amara KaranAmara KaranAmara Karan is an English actress who made her film début as the love interest in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. The film premièred at the 2007 Venice Film Festival...
as Rita - Natalie PortmanNatalie PortmanNatalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
as Jack's ex - Wallace WolodarskyWallace WolodarskyWallace Wolodarsky is an American television writer and director. He wrote for The Simpsons during the first four seasons; all of his episodes were co-written with former writing partner Jay Kogen...
as Brendan - Bill MurrayBill MurrayWilliam James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
as The Businessman - Camilla RutherfordCamilla RutherfordCamilla Rutherford is an English actress and fashion model.-Background:Rutherford was born to a journalist father and magistrate mother in Holland Park...
as Alice Whitman - Barbet SchroederBarbet SchroederBarbet Schroeder is a Franco-Swiss movie director and producer who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s, working together with directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.-Life and career:...
as The Mechanic - Irrfan Khan as The Father
Themes and motifs
The Darjeeling Limited includes many of Anderson's signature themes and styles, such as despair, abandonment, sibling relationships, a privileged class who rarely work, and timeless fashions and props. Anderson has revealed that The RiverThe River (1951 film)
The River is a 1951 film directed by Jean Renoir. It was filmed in India and was seminal to the launching of the careers of Satyajit Ray , who assisted on the film, and Subrata Mitra, Ray's cinematographer whom he met during the filming of The River.A fairly faithful dramatization of an earlier...
by Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
, the films of Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
and documentaries on India by Louis Malle
Louis Malle
Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...
were his inspirations for this movie. The film was dedicated to Satyajit Ray and makes allusions to him and his work (e.g., the portrait of Ray in the compartment of the train Bengal Lancer towards the end of the film).
In an homage shot, the three Whitman brothers are arranged in a row by the side of the train after it has broken down. This is a reference to an earlier Anderson film, Bottle Rocket
Bottle Rocket
Bottle Rocket is a 1996 comedy film directed by Wes Anderson. It was co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson. As well as being Wes Anderson's directorial debut, Bottle Rocket was the debut feature for brothers Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson, who co-starred with James Caan and Robert Musgrave.The film...
, where characters Dignan, Anthony and Bob are arranged as such for the cover.
Release
The Darjeeling Limited made its world premiere on 3 September 2007 at the Venice Film FestivalVenice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, where it was in competition for the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
and won the Little Golden Lion. The film's North American premiere was on 28 September 2007 at the 45th annual New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
, where it was the opening film. It then opened in a limited commercial release in North America on 5 October 2007.
The film opened across North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on 26 October 2007 and in the UK on 23 November 2007, in both territories preceded in showings by Hotel Chevalier. The film grossed $134,938 in two theaters in its opening weekend for an average of $67,469 for each theater. The film (widescreen edition) was released on DVD 26 February 2008 on Fox Searchlight, with features limited to a behind-the-scenes documentary, theatrical trailer, and the inclusion of Hotel Chevalier.
The film was re-released by the Criterion Collection on 12 October 2010 on both DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-Ray, the latter being the film's first release on the format.
Critical reception
The film received generally favorable reviews. , on the review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 66% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 158 reviews, with a consensus among critics that the film "will satisfy Wes Anderson fans." On Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, the film had an average score of 67 out of 100, based on 35 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
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film a "B+" and said "This is psychological as well as stylistic familiar territory for Anderson after Rushmore
Rushmore (film)
Rushmore is a 1998 comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson about an eccentric teenager named Max Fischer , his friendship with rich industrialist Herman Blume , and their mutual love for elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross . The film was co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson...
and The Royal Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 American comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson and co-written with Owen Wilson. The film stars Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston, with Danny Glover, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, and Owen Wilson....
. 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." A.O. Scott of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said that 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
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is an American comedy-drama film directed, written, and co-produced by Wes Anderson. It is Anderson's fourth feature length film, released in the U.S. on December 25, 2004...
(2004)." Nathan Lee of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
wrote "A companion piece to Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 American comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson and co-written with Owen Wilson. The film stars Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston, with Danny Glover, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, and Owen Wilson....
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
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
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 that the film is "hit and miss, but its tone of lyric melancholy is remarkably sustained."
Nick Schager of Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
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." 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 [sic], which was an artistic and commercial flop, Anderson could only go upward." Dana Stevens
Dana Stevens (critic)
Dana Shawn Stevens is a movie critic at Slate magazine. She is also a regular on the magazine's weekly cultural podcast the Culture Gabfest.-Life and career:Stevens grew up in Scarsdale, New York...
of Slate magazine
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
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
American Express
American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...
." Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....
of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
gave the film 1 stars out of 4 and said "At a stage in Anderson’s career when he should be moving on, he is instead circling back."
Glenn Kenny of Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
named it the 5th best film of 2007, and Mike Russell of The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
named it the 8th best film of 2007.
- The Times: "Wes Anderson's ... movies, such as Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, tend to drive audiences into two camps: those who see them as emotionally dead baubles wrapped in self-regarding irony; and those who see them as the apotheosis of film craftsmanship. The Darjeeling Limited is hardly going to bridge that gap". The Times
- The Guardian: "His latest film is a precious, self-admiring and fatally misjudged serio-comedy... it is the wrong side of condescension about India and Indians and it makes a grotesquely clumsy lurch into tragedy, followed by a supercilious switch back to the usual love-me-I'm-so-quirkily-vulnerable comedy"
Soundtrack
The soundtrack features three songs by The KinksThe Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
, "Powerman", "Strangers" and "This Time Tomorrow", all from the 1970 album, Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One
Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One
Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part OneAlternatively titled Kinks Part One: Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround; commonly abbreviated to Lola Versus Powerman is the eighth studio album by British rock band The Kinks, recorded and released in 1970...
, as well as "Play With Fire
Play with Fire (The Rolling Stones song)
"Play with Fire" is a song by English rock and roll band The Rolling Stones, originally released as B-side to the song "The Last Time". It was later included on the American release of their 1965 album Out of Our Heads....
" by The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
. "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)
Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)
"Where Do You Go To ?" is a 1969 song by Peter Sarstedt and recorded by renowned producer Ray Singer. Engineered by John Mackswith at Lansdowne Recording Studios. It was a #1 hit in the UK charts for four weeks in 1969 and was awarded the 1969 Ivor Novello Award, together with David Bowie's "Space...
" by Peter Sarstedt
Peter Sarstedt
Peter Eardley Sarstedt is an Anglo-Indian singer-songwriter.-Career:Sarstedt was born in India and attended Victoria Boys' School in Kurseong, in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. His family relocated to England in 1954...
is prominently featured as well, being played within the film more than once. Most of the album, however, features film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
music composed by Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
i filmmaker Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
, Merchant-Ivory films, and other artists from Indian cinema
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
. Director Wes Anderson has said that it was Satyajit Ray's movies that made him want to come to India. The works include "Charu's Theme", from Ray's 1964 film, Charulata
Charulata
Charulata is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore...
, film-score cues by Shankar Jaikishan
Shankar Jaikishan
Shankar Jaikishan , also known as S/J, is an Indian music composer duo in the Hindi film industry, working together from 1949–1971....
and classic works by Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
and Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
. The film ends with the 1969 song "Les Champs Élysées" by French singer Joe Dassin
Joe Dassin
Joseph Ira Dassin , more commonly known as Joe Dassin, was an American singer-songwriter best known for his French songs of the 1960s and 1970s.-Biography:...
, who was the son of blacklisted American director Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
.
Locations
Much of the film was shot in JodhpurJodhpur
Jodhpur , is the second largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is located west from the state capital, Jaipur and from the city of Ajmer. It was formerly the seat of a princely state of the same name, the capital of the kingdom known as Marwar...
, Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
. The Himalaya scenes were shot in Udaipur
Udaipur
Udaipur , also known as the City of Lakes, is a city, a Municipal Council and the administrative headquarters of the Udaipur district in the state of Rajasthan in western India. It is located southwest of the state capital, Jaipur, west of Kota, and northeast from Ahmedabad...
, and the opening scene of the film was also shot on the streets of Jodhpur. The International Airport shown near the end is the old terminal building of Udaipur Airport
Udaipur Airport
Udaipur Airport or Maharana Pratap Airport or Dabok Airport is the airport at Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. It is situated east of Udaipur....
. The scenes set in New York were shot in Long Island City.
Indian Railways does not operate a luxury train named The Darjeeling Limited, but it operates luxury trains like Maharaja Express
Maharaja Express
The Maharajas' Express is a luxury train operated on the Indian Railways from early 2010. It is a joint venture between Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation and the travel agency Cox and Kings India Ltd....
, Royal Rajasthan on Wheels etc.
There is a train named "Darjeeling Mail" that operates between Sealdah
Sealdah
Sealdah is one of the major train stations serving Kolkata in India, the others being Howrah Station, Shalimar Station and Kolkata Railway Station. Sealdah is one of the busiest rail stations in India and an important suburban rail terminal...
and New Jalpaiguri
New Jalpaiguri
New Jalpaiguri is a major railway station of the city of Siliguri in the Indian state of West Bengal. The station is popularly known by its acronym NJP...
, the nearest broad gauge
Broad gauge
Broad-gauge railways use a track gauge greater than the standard gauge of .- List :For list see: List of broad gauges, by gauge and country- History :...
station to Darjeeling; see Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, nicknamed the "Toy Train", is a narrow gauge railway from New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling in West Bengal, run by the Indian Railways....
and Darjeeling Mail
Darjeeling Mail
Darjeeling Mail is a daily train running between Sealdah in Kolkata and New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal. This is an overnight train running within West Bengal. Numbered 2343/2344 this train belongs to superfast category of Indian Railways covering 567 km in 10 hours averaging at...
.
External links
at Fox Searchlight- IONCINEMA.com interview with Wes Anderson
- An open letter to Wes Anderson from Steely DanSteely DanSteely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
offering musical contributions for the film - Darjeeling Limited Analysis