Tortuous Train Ride (Hollywood Reporter) - The whimsical and insightful charm that Wes Anderson and his filmmaking pals have displayed in such films as "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" curdles ruinously in the Indian sun that shines so brightly in their smug and self-satisfied new film "The Darjeeling Limited."
The Darjeeling Limited is a train especially mocked up for the film, a hybrid of the old U.S. 20th Century Limited and the Orient Express with regional patterns and colors and not remotely like the air-conditioned models of modern India. The boys jump off and on quite a bit and run up small hills trying to communicate with ancient spirits.
They stay for the funeral but appear oddly unmarked by the experience, being keen to get on with their search for mom. Huston shows up late in the film as a kind of nun to explain why she didn't go to their father's funeral, the circumstances of which are revealed in a stilted flashback.
There's an interesting soundtrack with lots of excerpts from the scores to films by Satyajit Ray and Merchant Ivory along with some Kinks and Rolling Stones tracks. The colors are beautiful and well captured by cinematographer Robert Yeoman.
But when current affairs are in such a parlous state, it's almost unforgivable to make a film about stupid American men traveling abroad with not the slightest awareness of or reference to anything that's going on in the world. The film is overly pleased with itself, and the characters are way too self-absorbed. There's never a man-eating tiger around when you need one.
Tortuous Train Ride (Hollywood Reporter) - The whimsical and insightful charm that Wes Anderson and his filmmaking pals have displayed in such films as "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" curdles ruinously in the Indian sun that shines so brightly in their smug and self-satisfied new film "The Darjeeling Limited."
The Darjeeling Limited is a train especially mocked up for the film, a hybrid of the old U.S. 20th Century Limited and the Orient Express with regional patterns and colors and not remotely like the air-conditioned models of modern India. The boys jump off and on quite a bit and run up small hills trying to communicate with ancient spirits.
They stay for the funeral but appear oddly unmarked by the experience, being keen to get on with their search for mom. Huston shows up late in the film as a kind of nun to explain why she didn't go to their father's funeral, the circumstances of which are revealed in a stilted flashback.
There's an interesting soundtrack with lots of excerpts from the scores to films by Satyajit Ray and Merchant Ivory along with some Kinks and Rolling Stones tracks. The colors are beautiful and well captured by cinematographer Robert Yeoman.
But when current affairs are in such a parlous state, it's almost unforgivable to make a film about stupid American men traveling abroad with not the slightest awareness of or reference to anything that's going on in the world. The film is overly pleased with itself, and the characters are way too self-absorbed. There's never a man-eating tiger around when you need one.