The Darjeeling Limited (2008)

Released on DVD on the 7th Apr 2008

The latest comedy from Wes Anderson, The Darjeeling Limited, tells a tale that is easy on the eye, and with much in it to recommend, yet on closer inspection may seem all too familiar to his fans.

Reunited for the first time since their father's funeral a year earlier, estranged brothers Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman board the Darjeeling train to cross India in the hopes of healing themselves along the way.
Each is suffering in a different way: Wilson hasn't recovered from a motorcycle crash that's left his head heavily-bandaged, Brody seems anxious to avoid his pregnant wife, and Schwartzman hasn't gotten over his relationship with ex-girlfriend Natalie Portman, lovingly presented in the brilliant short Hotel Chevalier, which prefaced the film in theatres.

Being an Anderson film the usual pleasures are all here: the wonderful soundtrack, the precise editing, the unique costumes, and some wonderful comic moments (an extended sequence where the boys fight over their father’s possesions is up there with Anderson’s best work) but for the first time in his career these ecletic details are attached to an anaemic story.
As the boys plans go awry they seek out their mother in a Himalayan monastery and the film loses it’s way.
The biggest problem here is these themes of alienation and dysfunctional families have been approached so much more effectively, by Anderson himself in The Royal Tenenbaums, resulting in the brothers' adventures adding up to curiously little in the end, and save for Wilson's moving turn (his tragic character is unfortunately given added gravitas by his recent suicide attempt), the film feels incomplete.

At one point it appeared Anderson was one of the American cinema’s biggest hopes. Now he is looking alarmingly like a one-trick pony.

Rating: 6/10

Release Date: 7th April 2008
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman
Running Time: 91 mins
Certficate: 15
Special Features: Short Film - 'Hotel Chevalier', Behind the scenes documentary
RRP: £19.99

REVIEW: Matthew Kleebauer