Image of the Darjeeling Limited movie poster

Thoughts on The Darjeeling Limited

 

A Description

One year after the death of their beloved father, three brothers (Owen Wilson as Francis, Jason Schwartzman as Jack, and Adrien Brody as Peter) meet on the train The Darjeeling Limited for a spiritual journey in India.

Francis, the oldest of the three, has organized the trip across India with the help of his assistant Brendan (Wallace Wolodarsky). But this isn’t just a spiritual journey for him, he has other plans for the three brothers…

The youngest brother Jack (Schwartzman) is madly in love with his estranged girlfriend (played by Natalie Portman) but is also attracted to one of the train’s attendants…

Peter, the middle brother, has left his very pregnant wife at home alone leaving for India without telling her.

These three emotionally damaged brothers go on a spiritual journey across India together to figure out just what the hell is wrong with themselves.

 

Things to Know About The Darjeeling Limited

Hotel Chevalier, a short film, is the prologue to The Darjeeling Limited…

Hotel Chevalier was not initially shown with The Darjeeling Limited and it seems Fox (the studio that produced The Darjeeling Limited) was unaware that Hotel Chevalier even existed.

The short film should be included with your DVD of The Darjeeling Limited but might not be present in digital only versions.

Wes Anderson used a lot of the actors he’s used in his other films for The Darjeeling Limited….

You’ll find a brief appearance by Bill Murray, Waris Ahluwalia from The Life Aquatic and The Grand Budapest Hotel, Owen Wilson of course, Jason Schwartzman, Kumar Pallana from The Royal Tenenbaums, and Anjelica Huston from The Life Aquatic.

Another thing to note, Jack does not wear shoes in this film. At all.

You’ll see Jack in the short film Hotel Chevalier without shoes and this shoe-lessness continues all the way through The Darjeeling Limited. It’s almost like Jack is just some child wandering around, uncaring of whether or not he’s got shoes on, just trying to keep up with his big brothers. It’s one of those details that make the film more story like in nature.

 

What is The Darjeeling Limited Really About

No fucking clue.

Well, I have some clue.

I think… I think it’s about family. About dysfunctional relationships. About life in general.

The Darjeeling Limited is highly stylistic if you didn’t notice, this is due to Wes Anderson’s desire to give it the feel of the Indian films he apparently loves so much.

But what this styling does to the story itself is make it more abstract. It isn’t easy to see a direct plot line or point or direction or whatever…

It just is what it is.

And I think that’s what makes The Darjeeling Limited so fantastic.

You see what you want to see in it.

You get what you want to get.

It is not a story that is telling you what its point is. You tell it what the point is.

 

The Styling

You’ll notice in The Darjeeling Limited that there are in fact color schemes, that everything is styled to give a sort of 1960’s impression, and yes those are in fact Louis Vuitton travel luggage (they were designed specifically for this film and are not available for purchase).

It’s all intentional and it’s all very pleasing on the eyes.

All of these colors and 1960’s feels really make the film more surreal, more abstract, more like a novel… that is the styling give the film an increased depth that you normally don’t mind in mainstream films.

 

Jack’s Short Story (it’s fictional)

Whatever happens in the end she said,
I don’t want to lose you as my friend.
He looked into her eyes,
I promise I will never be your friend. No matter what. Ever.
Her voice cracked if we fuck I’m going to feel like shit tomorrow.
That’s okay with me he said.
He lifter her shirt over her head.
I love you she said,
I never hurt you on purpose.
He nodded,
I don’t care.
He would not be going to Italy.

Peter – “I like how mean you are”


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Thoughts on the film ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ by Jordan Wunderlich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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