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The Darjeeling Limited [2007] | ![The Darjeeling Limited [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61P1KxCxDUL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Wes Anderson
Actors: Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £6.96
You Save: £13.03 (65%)
New (14) Used (3) from £6.39
Rating:  21 reviews
Format: Pal
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region: 2
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5039036037099
ASIN: B0012OTROI
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: April 7, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: FACTORY BRAND NEW AND SEALED AND COMES TO YOU FROM A PREMIER WEB SELLER WHO VALUES HIS REPUTATION FOR QUALITY AND SERVICE ABOVE ALL ELSE
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Family tension again provides dramatic comedy in Wes Anderson's new film, The Darjeeling Limited, about three American brothers travelling by train to find their reclusive mother in rural India. Like The Royal Tenenbaums, this film succeeds because of its smart, funny script in addition to the visual beauty of India and its luxurious locomotive transportation. In Darjeeling, the oldest brother, Francis (Owen Wilson), blackmails his two younger siblings, Peter (Adrien Brody), and Jack (Jason Schwartzman), into travelling to a monastery where their mother, Patricia (Anjelica Huston), has been in hiding as a nun. Supposedly embarking on a spiritual quest, the three men reminisce about the recent death of their father, and the family's irreconcilable problems previous to their reunification. Though they do find Patricia, Francis, Peter, and Jack grow immensely from another brush with death, this time an Indian boy they try to rescue, giving the film an added conceptual depth that Anderson's previous films have been accused of lacking. Co-written by Roman Coppola, The Darjeeling Limited is a finely-tuned critique of American materialism, emotional vacuity, and lack of spiritualism, presented in ironic twists and gorgeous cinematography and lighting recalling Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller. A lovely, poignant sequence occurs while the three brothers attend a traditional Indian funeral, and flash back to their father's one year prior. Moreover, the film's soundtrack culled from Satyajit Ray's films and vintage Kinks gives the film a timeless feel, removing it from the predictable indie rock scoring of independent releases. By far Anderson's best film thus far, The Darjeeling Limited offers a much-needed dose of cultural self-reflection, pillared against India's ever-evolving yet ancient religious backbone. --Trinie Dalton, Amazon.com
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Most Underrated film of 2007. February 23, 2008
turlaach (UK)
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
Definitely the most underrated (perhaps, more appropriately, unknown) movie of 2007. The story of three brothers' journey to India for 'spiritual' purposes. The setting of the movie is breathtaking, the plot is funny, emotional and heart-warming. The acting is superb, Direction is excellent and the Soundtrack is perfect. The characters are well developed, they have wonderful, yet flawed personalities. Yet you can't help but love them! Sadly overlooked for Oscars, Baftas and Golden Globes, this is easily my favourite film of 2007, if not the Noughties so far.
a trippy good time March 27, 2008
B.
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
It's almost guaranteed with a Wes Anderson film that you're in for a trippy good time, with more than a little melancholy to take the edge off. The Darjeeling Limited is no different. Three brothers (two reluctantly) set out on a journey of spiritual cleansing and sibling bonding as they travel through India.
The brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody & Jason Schwartzman) are still struggling with their father's untimely death a year prior and the subsequent emotional upheaval it left in its wake. Peter (Brody) is quiet and brooding, with a penchant for wearing his dead father's glasses, watch, you name it. Jack (Schwartzman), a writer, seems to be stuck writing the day of their father's funeral over & over again. And Francis (Wilson), the ringleader, is a total control freak who might, or might not, have driven his motorcycle into a mountain in a failed suicide attempt.
Sounds heavy, doesn't it?
Ah, but this is Wes Anderson. Where normally there would be Kramer Vs. Kramer melodrama, Anderson delivers something unbelievably funny and sublime. This is his calling card. And while some would say he's becoming something of a one-trick pony, I'd point out that many great directors pick a genre and stick with what they know; Hitchcock, Tarantino and Burton all come to mind.
While Wes Anderson films aren't for everyone - fans of fast-paced action will view his work as a form of slow torture, those who do get him are in for a treat. The Darjeeling Limited, with its tribute to the absurdity of the human condition, is just excellent.
Anderson excels March 4, 2008
kath (northumberland uk)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
The Darjeeling Limited contains all the quirky elements that Wes Anderson fans know and love but there's something more here, too. This story has a greater emotional depth than his previous films and out of the usual dry humour and stylish set piece encounters emerges a subtle and ultimately rather moving story of acceptance and reconciliation.
The film opens with a wonderful scene in which a frantic businessman (Bill Murray) races for a train and is overtaken by a younger man (Adrien Brody) who passes him and leaps aboard as Murray slows to a resigned halt. Youth and age, hope and disappointment, the chance nature of existence; it's all here in a gorgeously filmed slow-motion sequence that entices us into an almost dreamlike readiness for the weird misadventures to follow.
The Whitman brothers (Brody and Jason Schwartzman) brought together by the eldest, Francis (Owen Wilson), haven't seen each other since the death of their father and Francis wants them to reconnect on a spiritual journey through India on a luxurious train (the eponymous Darjeeling Limited). Each brother is unhappy and dissatisfied in his own way and good karma is in short supply. There is bickering, suspicion and the petty accusations fly. When the brothers are thrown off the train (for harbouring a poisonous snake) they seem bound to go their seperate ways until they chance upon three boys whose raft has capsized in a swollen river. They save two but the third is killed. The brothers are welcomed into the boys' village and invited to attend the funeral.
Suddenly the bickering and angst is overtaken by a profound and respectful sadness and a burgeoning self-awareness and the rest of the brothers' journey is coloured by the impact of the boy's death and the memories it evokes of their father's funeral a year before.
The brothers continue to their journey's unlikely conclusion (featuring a lovely cameo from Angelica Huston as their mother) but there are plenty of questions left unanswered.
Really, though, the plot of The Darjeeling Limited is not the point. The colour, atmosphere and tone envelop us in a beautifully realized other world that feels both visually magical and emotionally real. Anderson's detractors always accuse him of having more style than substance but it is really a matter of where we look for the film's meaning. It may be light, daft in places and with barely a plot but the characters' journeys are real enough. The performances are terrific and the three leads spar beautifully together. Few other directors can match Anderson for visual flair and with its rich palette of Indian colours the film is a visual wonder. There is plenty of dry humour, too, and some laugh out loud moments. And though the tone remains bright there are moments so poignant and evocative that we sense the darker shadows behind all the brilliance.
 A huge disappointment April 11, 2008
HT (London)
9 out of 26 found this review helpful
I watched The Darjeeling Limited with reasonably high expectations having enjoyed Anderson's earlier films and given that my family were originally from Gujerat (not far from the film's locations in Rajasthan). However, I found it to be largely crass, laboured and insensitive. It's the kind of film that Americans who have never been to India might enjoy, but for anyone who loves and knows the country it's quite another matter.
It's hard to warm to any of the characters - they are a series of quirks rather than real people (eg Jason Schwartzman doesn't wear shoes, for some unfathomable reason). In particular, it's not so great to watch bland, unlikeable Americans going to India to 'find' themselves when the film is so uninterested itself in India. Here it is nothing more than a colourful backdrop. Anderson clearly cares for it so little that a scene supposedly taking place in the foothills of the Himalayas was clearly shot in Rajasthan. For those of you who haven't been, the foothills are about as dissimilar from Rajasthan as Montana is from New York. They are a world apart.
The film is laden down with some of the worst metaphors that I have seen in a supposedly 'intelligent' film. When the three brothers finally discover the real meaning of life, they literally abandon their baggage - they dump it on the station platform! It's a long time since I've seen something as laboured as this.
This film is cultural appropriation of the worst sort.
 The Darjeeling feeling April 8, 2008
jamesewan (London / Grenoble)
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
Wes Anderson's offbeat style of filmmaking is definitely an acquired taste. Highly stylised - his saturated use of colour borders on the psychedelic - but with seemingly improvised dialogue, it is always hard to know how seriously to take his films. The Darjeeling Ltd epitomises this, combining the kind of tongue-in-cheek insincerity favoured by one of its protagonists - Owen Wilson - and the type of cliched spiritual journey that would be almost impossible to take seriously anyway. Anderson mocks Wilson's ridiculous attempts to bond with his brothers using (make-believe) karmic practises while romanticising India's visual aesthetic. We are expected to laugh at Western tourists playing at Brahmins but must become emotionally engaged when it randomly gets serious when they try to rescue some Indian village boys from drowning. If it wasn't filmed in Anderson's loose, offbeat style, this would have been laughed out of cinemas. As indie auteur du jour, however, liberal sprinklings of irony go along way with some audiences. In fact, this is paperthin: a little bit surreal but ultimately silly, slight and sarcastic.
The Darjeeling Ltd displays exactly the same dry humour as Anderson's previous work, but it is neither laugh-out-loud or darkly witty. As a Time Out reviewer put it "the comedy isn't funny enough and the emotions not deep enough". I can't put it any more succinctly than that. The Amazon review describes this film as "a finely-tuned critique of American materialism, emotional vacuity, and lack of spiritualism". But if Anderson was to be honest in showing up his fish-out-of-water American protagonists, he would not have idealised India so much. I have been to many of the locations depicted in the film, and it all looks curiously Disneyfied here. Coupled with the typical indie rock soundtrack - "ok, cue The Rolling Stones" - for instant atmosphere, this is sometimes lazy and facile filmmaking. Also, Anderson's quirky penchant for nauseating 180-degree camera turns and crude zooms are visual jokes (for what else could be the intended effect?) that are repeated tiresomely. After a while these tricks suggest desperation on the director's part to enliven the flat dialogue and plodding narrative. Poor.
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