Review of The Darjeeling Limited (2007) by Daniël J — 22 Mar 2013

"How can a train be lost? It's on rails.".

The Darjeeling Limited: a film about three brothers hopping on an Indian train in an attempt to find back their bonds of brotherhood. No teenage romance this time, but still a film that heavily relies on its simplicity in story. Although being a masterfully crafted film, the backbone of The Darjeeling Limited has some deep dents when it comes to the story and pacing.

Apparently, the more Wes Anderson movies I watch, the more I enjoy his unique and quirky style of filmmaking. Anderson always seems to run with exactly the same formula: Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and incredibly honest dialogue, blended together in a stunning color palette. Every single scene is of great artistic value: the cinematography fits the atmosphere, the set design is absolutely beautiful and the colors are pure eye-candy. However, if the only point to a review was to judge the visual entertainment of this film, Anderson deserves nothing but eulogy. But hey, even Sucker Punch would have been reasonable in this light - so this is definitely not enough.

So, on what exact front does The Darjeeling Limited fall short? The writing. There's two sides to the story though. Most of the dialogue is actually quite fascinating. There are enough witty and quick lines to go around, which makes one giggle now and then. These jokes work perfectly with the characters - who are embodied reasonably well by Brody, Wilson and Schwartzman. Unfortunately, once I tried to find out what the bigger picture of this film was, I could hardly find an answer other than that the plot is relatively empty. Nothing really happens nor does the movie really progress. There is no beginning, middle and end, which makes most of the film feel like you're stuck in the same scene. Although this scene might be funny and gorgeous to look at, it remains one single scene. Therefore, I did not really feel like The Darjeeling Limited had some revelation at the end, or even a purpose to begin with. Entertaining, but it does not do or say much.

Let's end on a deep hipster note. What I do believe this film shows, is a painful truth about moviegoers. According to the budget estimations, this movie did not make any money. To be exact, the film actually ended in a six million dollar loss. That, I cannot believe. Films like these, although not remarkably amazing, deserve way more recognition and visitors than for example Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which wins were equal to its 200 million dollar budget. I'll leave it at the fact that CGI is not everything.

For now, I'll try to find an appropriate rating for a film that is - on the one side - a visual and witty achievement, but on the other nothing incredibly surprising or new. I get the feeling that only Wes Anderson fans or hipsters like movies like this, because I can definitely imagine that someone would hate the living shit out of The Darjeeling Limited. Fortunately, I was one of those hipsters for today.

6.5/10.