Movie · 2007 · Adventure, Drama, Comedy · 1h 32m · R · English
Curator score: 7.2/10 (926.9K ratings)
I want us to be brothers again, like we used to be.
Overview
Three American brothers who have not spoken to each other in a year set off on a train voyage across India with a plan 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, and pepper spray).
Ratings
Curator score: 7.2/10
IMDb: 7.2/10
Letterboxd: 3.86/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 69%
Metacritic: 67
TMDB: 7.1/10
Director
Wes Anderson
Production
Fox Searchlight Pictures, Collage, American Empirical Pictures
Cast
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, Trudy Mathis, Margot Gödrös, Hitesh Sindi, Kishen Lal, Bhawani Sankar, Mukhtiar Bhai
Curator Review
Verdict
A visually meticulous, emotionally guarded road movie that turns sibling dysfunction into a bittersweet comic pilgrimage. Its deadpan humor, precise design, and undercurrent of grief make it especially rewarding if you like style-forward films that slowly reveal real feeling.
Best for
Wes Anderson fans
viewers who like melancholy comedies
road movies with a spiritual or emotional quest
stories about sibling estrangement and reconciliation
people drawn to highly designed visual storytelling
Skip if
you want a fast-moving plot
you dislike arch or mannered dialogue
you prefer realism over stylized storytelling
you want the emotional beats to be direct rather than oblique
Overview
The Darjeeling Limited is one of those films that looks whimsical on the surface but is quietly bruised underneath. The train setting gives it a literal forward motion, yet the brothers are mostly circling the same wounds: grief, resentment, and the awkwardness of trying to become a family again after drift has set in. The comedy comes from their self-importance and bad decisions, but the movie’s real interest is in how people perform healing before they’re ready to do it for real.
Worth noting
Wes Anderson’s visual control is the main attraction: saturated color, symmetrical framing, and a travelogue of India that feels both romanticized and emotionally unsettled. The film’s tone is lighter and looser than some of his more tightly wound work, which helps the sadness land without overwhelming the comedy. It’s a movie of detours, interruptions, and small revelations rather than big catharsis.
Bottom line
What makes it endure is the balance between absurdity and sincerity. The brothers are ridiculous, often selfish, and frequently lost, but the film never treats their longing as a joke. If you respond to stylized melancholy, sibling dynamics, and a story that finds meaning in the messiness of trying to reconnect, this is one of Anderson’s most affecting films.
Top Letterboxd reviews
<3 (3★) · 20474 likes
the holy trinity of Noses™
alice (4.5★) · 15195 likes
we get it wes! you wanna fuck the colour yellow and you wanna fuck adrien brody! me too okay!
kennedy (3.5★) · 10859 likes
i'm jack when he feels emotionally vulnerable and so plays claire de lune on his ipod through the bluetooth speaker in the middle of the desert
saskia 🦈 (4.5★) · 7569 likes
“how can a train be lost? It's on rails” i actually loved this film so much, wes anderson truly is a brilliant filmmaker
James (Schaffrillas) (4★) · 7518 likes
The fact that this came out a year after Cars is so funny to me like Owen Wilson played this broken guy trying to physically and emotionally heal from his wounds and reconnect with his brothers a year after stepping into the voice booth and going "KACHOW" 50 times