Two ways of describing what The Darjeeling Limited is about spring to mind: one, it's a film about the 'spiritual journey' undertaken by brothers Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman), initially on the Darjeeling Limited, a cross-country train running through India, and then, unexpectedly, off the rails (so to speak); and two it's a film about the things we do to ourselves, the things we do to other people, and the things the world does to all of us (and, in all of those veins, it's more than a little about family, too).
Whatever else it may be, The Darjeeling Limited is certainly a Wes Anderson movie - it has the hyper-coloured magic realist flourishes and deadpan surrealist touches, and also the desire (and many of the tools) to be a genuine character piece. But it's more serious than The Life Aquatic or The Royal Tenenbaums, its deliberate absurdities marginally more muted, its yen towards the universal clearer (which hinges mainly on the montage near the end showing all of the characters riding that there train), its message more overt by film's close.
I wonder, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was better on a second viewing, too. There's something very pleasing about Darjeeling that's difficult to pin down - a sort of elegance. (The one outright hilarious scene had all of us laughing out of all proportion to how funny it actually was - though admittedly Brody and Schwartzman doing straight-faced slapstick was always likely to be pretty great - which I reckon was due in no small part to the cumulative effect of the film, both its humour and its seriousnesses.)
Also, film proper was preceded by a two-handed (Schwartzman and Natalie Portman) short, Hotel Chevalier, which is excellent in its own right, and adds considerably to one's appreciation of what comes after.
(w/ David; Patrick and Simin also coincidentally there)
