Like a geriatric, British version of "The Big Chill," the handful of characters in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" have found themselves at a crossroads in the presence of one another and are forced to make choices. And also like "The Big Chill," this film is populated with fantastic and reliable actors elevating their material above what it was probably capable of without them.
But for some reason, the sum of some pretty wonderful parts that comprise "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" left me a bit, well, chilled. It's a highly pleasant and charming little entertainment that passes the time but doesn't really say as much as you think it could say or entertain you quite as much as you expect it will, given the pedigrees of its craftsmen.
For various reasons, seven senior citizen Brits have made the decision to leave England and retire to a resort in India called The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. There, their retirements will be much more affordable. The cost of living will be more manageable on their fixed incomes. Even necessary medical procedures will be more do-able. They choose this retirement resort in Jaipur in part because the brochure selling it is a sham, making it look far better than the real thing upon arrival.
The group of newly-acquainted traveling companions includes a recent widow (Judi Dench) who is too agile to completely settle in to retirement and will seek employment in India, a crabby and unhappy married couple (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton), a retired judge (Tom Wilkinson) who spent some important years of his younger life in India and seizes the opportunity to put that past into perspective and two seniors (Ronald Pickup and Celia Imrie) who are looking for December romances, one hoping for something more permanent than the other. And because no British Old People Movie is complete without Maggie Smith, she joins them as a racist crank attempting to swallow her Briton pride to procure a much-needed hip replacement on the cheap in India, if only she can find a white doctor there to do it.
When the group arrives, they are met by Sonny (Dev Patel, of "Slumdog Millionaire"), the son of the hotel's former owner. Sonny does everything in his power to smokescreen the hotel's ramshackle reality with a welcome-to-India song and dance, but the elders are predictably disapproving, disappointed, and uncertain. And so begins a co-mingling of separate character story lines intersecting with one another as each character attempts to acclimate him/herself with the exotic locale, their over-billed accommodations, and each other. And, for a chance to see how the Indians live, we also follow Sonny's personal life and witness how his mother disapproves of his romance with a calling center employee and wants him to ditch the hotel and move back in with her so that she can find him a more suitable wife.
Since this film has been out for a while now, I flipped through a dozen or so reviews of the movie after seeing the film myself and before writing this review. I was not surprised to find my feelings of "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" confirmed by virtually every critic I read. None of them saw in this film a four-star movie, and none of them thought it was a bad movie. All of them felt the acting was fantastic and that the cast assembled by director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") elevated the material to a higher level. All of them also acknowledged that the film was mostly predictable but had a number of lovely, touching and warmly funny moments. Many of them also mentioned that the audience for a film such as this one is under-served by the film industry and that film goers who share ages with these characters would likely be pleased with the movie.
I try not to rely on the opinions of others when I review films myself, but I find it difficult to bring anything new to this particular conversation. I agree with absolutely every comment I've collected in the paragraph above. I found this movie to be as pleasant as a flavorful cup of tea, with all of the predictability of how that tea is going to taste.
The worst thing I can say about it is that it was predictable. I knew that the hotel wasn't going to be as great as they thought it would be. I knew that Maggie Smith's racist character would have to have a change of heart and eventually be subtly charmed by the locals. I knew that the married couple would bicker for two hours.
So for me, the joys in viewing "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" came in witnessing actors exploring the range of their gifts as performers. I was delighted to see the tough-as-nails Dench in a role that allowed her to be vulnerable, even shaken. And the film's best scenes involved Wilkinson's character, who provided the film with a history and a soul and explored the shame of mistakes not reconciled when a person is at a certain age and still holding onto regret.
I could take or leave almost everything else. Not having been to India, I didn't see anything in Madden's delivery of the country or its people that I haven't already seen in some other film set in the country. And most egregiously, I found Patel's portrayal of the hotel owner to be a caricature of an annoyance, one step above Punjab in "Annie," if I'm being honest. His every move was a crazy cartoon version of a young person from India. I think Patel is a talented young man, but he got the tone completely wrong on this one. It was painful to watch.
Lately it seems that I've watched a number of films that simply were not made for me as an audience member. I am too young - in theory - for this movie. For certain, I am not its target audience. I was too old for "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." And "This is 40," which I just saw yesterday, is almost exactly where I am in my life at this very moment. But I think I'm learning the trick of appreciating a movie for what it sets out to do and understanding who it's for. And from that perspective, "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is certainly a success of a movie if its aim is to provide a well-crafted and pleasant diversion to older audiences looking to see a few of their issues being bandied about in a rich and colorful foreign location. I wouldn't personally call it "best," or even all that "exotic," but my stay at this hotel was - however predictable at times - painless and sometimes even enjoyable.
★ ★ 1/2
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