The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Hmmm. I'm not sure what to think about this movie. I adore The Royal Tenenbaums so I really wanted to like it but Darjeeling just didn't do it for me. First, the opening Hotel Chevalier was just odd. It didn't add anything two seconds of dialogue couldn't clear up. Second, and most importantly, I didn't care about any of these characters until the scene in which the brothers try to save the children from the river--and that's a good ways into the film. After that point, I cared but I had no investment in the movie prior to that point. But, after that scene, I don't feel like my caring paid off. I intellectually got the absurdity and all of the film but if I have no investment in the characters and, thus, no investment in the film, the absurdity doesn't work either. And, on a minor note, for whatever reasons, I just couldn't buy Owen Wilson as an older brother. It didn't work for me. Throughout the movie, I was mentally making Adrian Brody the oldest. Something about the sibling dynamic just didn't read quite right for Wilson to be the oldest.