What Do The Critics Say?

"A tall tale of mishaps and misadventure that settles into a thoughtful, moving journey. By turns funny, smart and poignant, it’s one of the most satisfying films of 2007." Aubrey Day TOTAL FILM "Anderson's fifth feature is more or less a series of vignettes than a traditional narrative. For all its quixotic quirkiness, The Darjeeling Limited is little more than artifice for the art house set." David N Butterworth REC ARTS MOVIE REVIEWS "However irregular the beat, this one has a heart." Michael Phillips CHICAGO TRIBUNE "Funny peculiar and funny ha ha, with a spontaneity and energy that gather up a powerful emotional head of steam as it chugs along." Angie Errigo EMPIRE MAGAZINE "It is a delight to look at, with its vibrant colors, iconic images and exotic setting, and the film has a meandering feel that captures the sense of trekking across India. Fans of The Royal Tenenbaums are bound to enjoy Darjeeling, which has a similar feel. It is superior to the flawed Life Aquatic, Anderson's last film." Claudia Puig USA TODAY

"Dysfunctional families have long been the favorite subject of filmmaker Wes Anderson, but he has rarely approached the topic with as much heart as he does here." Robert W Butler KANSAS CITY STAR "A better film [than Life Aquatic], warmer, more engaging, funnier and very surrounded by India, that nation of perplexing charm." Roger Ebert CHICAGO SUN-TIMES "Captures the wistful woe and longing that drove the best parts of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. The film is highly satisfying and most welcome." Jeffrey M Anderson COMBUSTIBLE CELLULOID "A spunky spiritual adventure story about three American brothers traveling through India and trying to connect with each other and come to terms with the past and death." Frederic and Mary Ann SPRITUALITY AND PRACTICE "Bristling with nervous energy and quirky characters, Anderson continues his exploration of the ties that bind families while also offering a wonderfully colourful travelogue through India. It's entertaining and engaging, and also deliberately strange. Anderson's playful filmmaking approach works extremely well in the chaotic settings in India; the urban bustle, rural eccentricities, natural beauty and even the enclosed world of the train come to life distinctly." Rich Cline SHADOWS ON THE WALL

The Inside Story Trains have inspired moviemakers since the earliest days of cinema. In 1895, the Lumiere brothers’ pioneering fifty second movie "Arrival Of The Train" terrified audiences who had never before seen an image hurtling at them. In 1903, Edwin S Porter created the first narrative film with "The Great Train Robbery". And ever since, from the lavish sophistication of "Murder On The Orient Express" to the chaos of "A Hard Day's Night", trains have been a means of kinetically propelling all kinds of characters on all manner of journeys. The trains that called to Anderson, however, were not just any locomotives but those that crisscross the world’s most train-centric country: the capacious, explosively growing nation of India with its rolling tapestry of color and culture, beauty and absurdity, poverty and spirituality. "The Darjeeling Limited" comes from three of Wes Anderson’s interests: trains, India and brothers. Anderson had never been to India before he conceived of the film, but had long been in love with a landscape that had popped off the screen in some of his favorite movies, especially Jean Renoir’s visually stunning "The River", a coming of age story set on the banks of the Ganges, and the sweeping, emotional films of the master Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The idea of bringing his own comically bittersweet sensibility to a world so jarringly different from his own intrigued him. So it was that all three of these story strands started coming together – and Anderson found himself setting off on his own three-man quest to India. "I decided I would like to make a movie in India, I decided I would like to make a movie on a train and I thought I’d like to make a movie about three brothers," Anderson says. "Then I asked my friends Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola to join me in writing the movie and we all went to India together." Schwartzman recalls that before the trio travelled to India, the writing started while all three were temporarily living in Paris. "I know this sounds kind of corny and picturesque but we started writing a lot of the film in little French cafes late at night. Then at some point Wes just said: you know, maybe it would be good if we went to India. And so we all went in March of 2006 and that’s when we began participating in the very things we were writing about." "We each ended up sharing personal experiences and germinating some of the ideas that factor into the story," producer ("Clownhouse") and writer ("The Spirit of '76") Roman Coppola explained. Thus were born the three Whitman brothers: Francis (the eldest), Peter and little Jack (the baby of the family). For Anderson, Schwartzman and Coppola, their own trip to India changed everything. The elegiac mood, buzzing energy and redolent atmosphere of the country seeping by osmosis into the hilarious twists and poignant turns of the brother's tale. "It’s really not like any place else," says Anderson. "It’s a place where so many aspects of daily life are so radically different from our own, and that really affected the screenplay." "We got a lot of ideas in India that were things you couldn’t really ever create or imagine: I mean just wonderful moments that were really worth capturing in one way or another," says Schwartzman. "The train and India really did become characters." "I think we all hope that the vibrant, chaotic spirit we found in India, and that the Whitman brothers find in India, will really come across in the movie," says Coppola. When producer Lydia Dean Pilcher ("The Namesake") received the finished screenplay she was taken aback; in a good way. "I had heard that Wes was making a film about a train trip in India and my first thought was, a documentary?" she recalls. "I was very curious about it and then I read the script and found it was this amazing story of these three brothers who had gone off in their ways after their father died and never resolved things between themselves, and now suddenly they’ve been brought together in India." Pilcher was even more excited when she heard how Wes Anderson planned to approach it. "Wes told me that he really wanted to make this movie in a completely different way than anything he had ever done before," she explains. "He wanted to abandon the traditional entrapments of making a movie and really pare down the process. So, he wanted the actors to do their own makeup, to dress themselves in the morning and to really try to create an environment where the characters are functioning in this fictional world as if they were real people taking this trip. It was a very compelling idea." "The whole spirit behind the movie was to put these characters on the train and then to move fast into chaos, to really roll with the punches, and to always let the unexpected happen," Anderson explained. To play the three brothers, Wes Anderson cast three leading actors with a unique affinity for each other, yet who also serve as delightful foils for one another’s temperaments. As the Whitmans, cool, wry Owen Wilson plays off the simmering intensity of Adrien Brody and the whimsically poignant comedy of Jason Schwartzman with an organic kind of family feeling. In his role as the somewhat imperious eldest brother Francis, Owen Wilson appears as he has never been seen on screen before: achingly vulnerable, with most of his face heavily bandaged, covering the stitches and scars of his recent motorcycle crash, and limping along with a cane in a fragile state of desperate, if still utterly anal, seeking. Wilson says the inspiration for his character's appearance came after he "saw a guy at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome in a motorcycle jacket whose face was covered in bandages. He had foam pads on the side of his head, his eyes were all black; and he was walking around the place in this sort of startled daze, with tears just sort of standing in his eyes." When Anderson sent Owen Wilson the screenplay, he reacted immediately to the story. "The story reminded me of one of those family vacations you had growing up where everything would end in disaster. Even though we’re supposed to be having this blessed spiritual experience, we can’t quite get past the bickering that kept us away from each other for so long in the first place." Francis’ chief rival is his brother Peter. He too, it turns out, is at a crossroad in his life. Academy Award ® winner Adrien Brody ("The Pianist") is the only one of the trio who hasn’t worked with Anderson previously. He jumped at the chance. "When I got the call that Wes wanted to meet me, it was very exciting news because I’ve been a huge fan of his," he recalled. "What I love about Wes is that he’s a young man whose perspective is really that of someone from our generation." When Brody read the screenplay he was even more intrigued. "I think the beauty of the story is that you have these three guys going through relatively painful stuff but it’s being dealt with in a very comedic and really wonderfully odd way. It brings a beautiful, lighter view of resolving the problems we all face in life." How does he see his character? "Peter’s a man searching for answers," he said. "I think we’re all looking for answers and I guess some appear and some are never answered and that’s also what happens in this story." When it came to casting the youngest brother it was clear from the beginning that co-writer Jason Schwartzman was perfect for the character. Perhaps that's because Schwartzman, Wilson and Anderson go back a long way. Anderson and Wilson’s collaboration goes back to the beginning of both their careers, when they co-wrote Anderson’s directorial debut, the runaway indie hit "Bottle Rocket". The film would also launched Wilson as a screen star. Schwartzman's connection to goes back to 1988, beginning their collaboration with the movie that would bring both to international. The year was 1988. The film was "Rushmore , in which Schwartzman starred as Max Fischer (it also starred Bill Murray as Herman Blume). "I’ll always think of Wes as my mentor, someone who I look up to very much," Schwartzman says. "It’s wonderful to work with someone who you really believe in, and with Wes, I’m really happy to march in and try to do the best job I can." Academy Award ® winner Anjelica Huston ("Prizzi's Honor") was cast as the brothers mum, Patricia. "I was very happy that he decided to include me. Wes is such a unique artist and has such a fantastic eye that I’m always happy to participate and pleased when he asks. He inspires people to go out on limbs because of his own seriousness and his own sense of urgency," says Huston. She confessed that she loves "nuns in movies. I even wanted to be a nun when I was about six, but it was a brief, brief time." As for having Wilson, Schwartzman and Brody as her three sons, Huston says: "They really do seem related in an odd way, and it was a real pleasure to work with all of them." Amara Karan, who plays Rita, had never been to India. Her character is an intrigiung one. Relating to the brothers in a completely different way is Rita the train stewardess, who winds up in whirlwind affair with Jack. "Rita lives and works on the Darjeeling Limited. She’s a very intelligent, self-possessed girl who is a bit too smart for this job of waiting tables and doing the daily chores, and I think she sees the brothers as a gateway toward a more exciting possibility in life." Irrfan Kahn, critically acclaimed acclaim for his portrayal of Gogol’s father Ashoke in Mira Nair's "The Namesake", portrays an Indian villager whose life is changed by a sudden tragedy involving the three brothers. Synopsis

Three American brothers, Francis, Peter and Jack Whitman, who have not spoken to each other in a year set off on a train voyage across India. The brothers have been estranged since their father's sudden death, and each is now embroiled in his own personal drama. Jack is being toyed with by his two-timing girlfriend, Peter's wife is about to give birth, and Francis recently survived a car crash that nearly killed him. The plan is to find themselves and bond with each other, to become brothers again like they used to be. Their "spiritual quest", however, veers rapidly off-course, due to events involving over the counter pain killers, Indian cough syrup, pepper spray, a Cobra and an attitude problem. Eventually they find themselves stranded alone in the middle of the desert with eleven suitcases, a printer, and a laminating machine. At this moment, a new, unplanned journey suddenly materializes.

The Verdict "Anderson delivers another of his wry, quirky films that will delight 'art-house' film lovers and provide new opportunites to those who haven't experienced anything other than mainstream films. The rich characters, the Indian landscape and life on and off the Darjeeling Limited make this a very engaging film indeed. It's a tale of tragedy, love, family, adventure, reconcilliation that will endeer itself to cinemagoers. The films final moments ram home how much we as viewers have encountered along the way. A far better journey than Anderson's last film, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" and one that is well worth taking. 3 1/2 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "THE DARJEELING LIMITED" stars .......
Owen Wilson ["The Royal Tenenbaums", "Meet the Fockers", "Wedding Crashers" and "You, Me and Dupree"]; Adrien Brody ["The Affair of the Necklace", "The Pianist" and "King Kong"]; Jason Schwartzman ["Slackers", "Shopgirl" and "Marie Antoinette"]; Amara Karan ["St. Trinian's"]; Waris Ahluwalia ["The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", "Inside Man" and "High Falls"]; Bill Murray ["Cradle Will Rock", "The Royal Tenenbaums", "Lost in Translation" and "Broken Flowers"] and Anjelica Huston ["The Man from Elysian Fields", "The Royal Tenenbaums", "Daddy Day Care" and "Art School Confidential"] as Sister Patricia Whitman.
"THE DARJEELING LIMITED" was .......
directed by Wes Anderson ["Bottle Rocket", "Rushmore", "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"]; art direction by Adam Stockhausen ["Ash Tuesday" and "Margot at the Wedding"] and Aradhana Seth ["Shadows in the Dark", "Everybody Says I'm Fine!" and "One Night with the King"]; costume design by Milena Canonero ["A Clockwork Orange", "Chariots of Fire", "Out of Africa", "Midnight Express" and "Marie Antoinette"]; production design by Mark Friedberg ["Runaway Bride", "Pollock", "Far From Heaven" and "The Producers"]; edited by Andrew Weisblum ["Coney Island Baby", "Broken English" and "Dear Lemon Lima"]; director of photography by Robert Yeoman ["Drugstore Cowboy", "Rushmore", "The Squid and the Whale" and "Red Eye"]. Who's Who?

Owen Wilson Adrien Brody Jason Schwartzman Amara Karan Wallace Wolodarsky Waris Ahluwalia Irrfan Khan Barbet Schroeder Camilla Rutherford Bill Murray Anjelica Huston A.P. Singh Kumar Pallana Dalpat Singh Gurdeep Singh Charu Shankar Badrhi Dave G.B. Singh Bhavna Narang

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Francis Peter Jack Rita Brendan The Chief Steward The Father The Mechanic Alice The Businessman Sister Patricia Whitman Taxi Driver Old Man Waiter Chief Steward - Bengal Lancer Stewardess - Bengal Lancer Hindu Priest Pilot Captain Flight Attendant

Run Time 104 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2007 - 20th Century Fox - All Rights Reserved ©2007 All Rights Reserved - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - Protected by Australian & International Copyright. Trademark Laws Apply.