We like re-watching films on DVD that we have not seen for at least six or seven years, since by that stage we have usually forgotten some of the storyline, and most of the details. It’s more than eight years since we watched ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’, but we recalled enjoying it. So it seemed like a good film to choose for a light evening’s viewing.
We remembered the outline - that a diverse group of people travel to India to stay in a hotel which turns out to be nowhere near as glamorous as it’s advertised. It’s still being refurbished, the rooms are not ready… and there have not even been any previous guests. We remembered, too, the young and enthusiastic Indian owner Sonny (Dev Patel) - but that was about the limit of our recollections.
The film opens with brief scenes in the lives of the people who are going to be travelling. And it’s quite an all-star cast. Judi Dench - excellent as always - plays the recently-widowed Evelyn. She’s spent all her married life trusting her husband, and doing almost nothing independently. Now she’s discovered that he had a lot of debt… and her home must be sold.
Maggie Smith also features in this - she, too, is superb as the elderly and extremely bigoted Muriel. She needs an operation but would have to wait many months with the NHS, so - somewhat under protest - she is sent to India. Muriel’s gradual healing and transformation - and the apparent shedding of a couple of decades - is one of the highlights of this film.
Then Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton play a not-very-happily-married couple, Douglas and Jean, who are looking at retirement homes. Douglas is very much in the style of Nighy’s other characters, but it works well. Jean is a complainer who doesn’t much like doing anything, but is quite outspoken.
Celia Imrie is Madge, who is fed up with continual childminding for her grandchildren, even though she loves them. I found her character the weakest, not really fitting in with anyone else. She’s a snob, on the lookout for a man (so long as he’s high class, preferably royalty). But I couldn’t quite believe in her.
Finally there are two single men: Norman (Ronald Pickup) who is on the lookout for some intimacy with women, and doesn’t think his age should prevent him, and Graham (Tom Wilkinson) who has just retired as a lawyer, and is the only member of the group who has actually lived in India.
These folk meet at the airport when their flight to the ‘Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ is cancelled, and Graham is the one who organises their transport. It’s a stressful journey but they hope for a place of respite when they arrive… only to discover rooms that are full of dust (or worse), some without doors, none of them prepared. And the film is about the way that each of them, in different ways, adjusts - or doesn’t adjust - to the new environment, the sounds and colours in India, and the culture, which is quite alien to most of them.
With such an incredible cast, it’s not surprising that this film works extremely well, focussing on the friendships that gradually build up, and the ways that the people in the group change as their horizons are widened. There’s quite a bit of humour, and it manages to be amusing without being offensive; fun is poked not at Indian culture as such but at the foibles and biases of the English visitors. Dev Patel as Sonny is also extremely funny with excellent timing and expressions, as he works hard to persuade everyone around him to support his vision.
It’s not just a comedy, though - there’s a romantic thread that looks at the way Indian marriages happen, and there’s a great deal of pathos, as some of the people confront excessive poverty and learn to behave in ways that do not conflict with the values of their hosts.
All in all we thought it an excellent film, and were only disappointed that the one ‘extra’ is extremely short, saying very little. The rating of 12 (UK) or PG-13 (US) seems appropriate; there's nothing explicit, but many sexual references, and some mild violence as well as one or two potentially disturbing scenes. However, a film like this about retired people is unlikely to be of interest to children or younger teens anyway.
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