Running Time: 2 hours, 4 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: John Madden
Quick Impressions:
As we left the theater, my husband (who told me that I had over-estimated his enjoyment of Battleship) remarked, “This is the best movie I’ve seen so far this year.” Though I agreed, I added, “The Avengers was also very good.” My husband said, “Yes, but if I were in the mood to watch one, then I probably wouldn’t want to watch the other.” But almost immediately he took it back saying, “You know, I’d probably never not be in the mood to watch either one.”
If that sentence seems a bit complicated, I’ll make it plainer for you.
We loved this movie. We both want to own it and can imagine re-watching it millions of times. We thought it was awesome.
Of course, we’d gone in expecting good things. We’ve been excited to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel right from the first preview. I mean—Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy—a heavy hitting ensemble like that gets your attention. And the preview makes the movie look funny, which it most definitely is. Along with the rest of the audience, we laughed out loud a number of times, robust, mirthful laughter, the kind that makes you feel good as it pours out of your throat and fills your ears.
What a wonderful movie! We thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. It’s a joyful, moving, and thoroughly pleasant experience featuring fantastic performances from a strong cast, all playing interesting, dynamic characters.
Now don’t get the wrong idea. This movie wasn’t earth shaking, innovative, daring, risky…nothing like that. Basically, it’s a feel good, romantic comedy that sets itself apart from other romantic comedies by focusing on older (than usual in a Hollywood feature) characters in an “exotic” location.
But it works. It really works.
The Good:
This movie seemed much less contrived and annoying than most romantic comedy adaptations of popular feel good novels. (Maybe I’m creating my own weird little straw man here, but most “feel good” movies that come from popular fiction seem to center on the message that if you’re a woman, you deserve happiness, and you find it through self-indulgence, conspicuous consumption, and the attention of at least two strapping hunks who spend the movie conspicuously vying for your affections. Now that I get to the end of the description, I’m pretty sure that I am kind of making that up and not really being fair to an entire subgenre of films.) The point is, though, this movie is not like that.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel really has heart, and it’s got something else, too. Maturity.
That may sound like a joke because the movie focuses on the post-retirement lives of elderly Britons in India. But I’m serious. To me, part of the movie’s appeal is that we, the audience—like the characters themselves—don’t know what to expect from their new lives in India. Life after sixty-five isn’t as strictly scripted as what has come before. A bunch of high school seniors spending a summer in India—you’d know what to expect from a group like that. Just like you’d have an idea what twenty-to-thirty-something singles would be after while living abroad (especially in a movie).
But people in their twilight years have already lived their lives. And yet, they’re not dead. So what are they supposed to do now? They all come from different places, all have different (and complex) backstories. All of them are also weighed down by their personal failings and private griefs. They’ve all reached different points of enlightenment, maturity, growth. They seem to have come to India yearning for something more without really having a clear idea of what that something is. They’ve come needing catharsis and seeking hope. It’s a delightfully mysterious set up that could lead anywhere.
The movie begins by introducing these vibrant characters, one by one. But what will their story be? Early on, it becomes clear that their relationships with one another will be an essential element of the movie. But will these people become friends, enemies, lovers, examples or foils for one another?
I’ve known my share of eighteen-year-old philosophers, new freshmen on campus who want to debate the meaning of life without yet having lived. But what happens when you have lived—lived and lived and lived—and now you’re staring death in the face, and you still don’t have your answer? Finding the meaning of life is a different kind of endeavor when your next clear milestone is death.
The guests at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel aren’t looking for pseudo-intellectual b.s. or pithy platitudes. They need real, meaningful, personalized answers, and as they find them, the movie lets us share in their insights, epiphanies, and frustrations. At moments, the film can actually be quite profound. But it’s never pretentious or obnoxious. It doesn’t try to be more than it is.
Really the best part about the movie is that the story is so character driven. It’s got a great script that allows the exceptional cast to shine. To me, it seems amazing that within the same movie, you would find complex characters with full arcs for Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, and Bill Nighy (for a start). Any one of these fine actors is powerhouse enough to carry a movie, but that one film can allow all four to shine seems quite remarkable.
Another plus is the rich, colorful, vibrant setting. I left the movie wanting to go to India, which comes to life in the eye-catching visuals and catchy soundtrack playing in the background.
Best Scene:
I think my favorite part was one of the first scenes in the hotel dining room, when Norman Cousins ends up on the floor with a cloth over his face. This scene drew so much continuous audience reaction, lots and lots of laughter. Everybody in the theater was into it. Not only do Ronald Pickup and Dev Patel make this a screamingly funny scene, but we also get to see the reactions and interactions of all the characters who are only just beginning to gel as a group. Maggie Smith’s reaction to what’s going on is to die for! How on earth she makes such an odious racist so sympathetic and then manages to be so funny and so moving at the same time, I will never know. She’s a wonderful actress, and it’s so nice when you see talented performers given the kinds of parts they deserve.
The Performances/The Characters:
What really makes the movie work is that almost every character experiences such growth. As we gradually learn each person’s mysterious backstory, we come to understand them all better. And as they continue to grow in the present story, they come to understand themselves better, too.
Perhaps the most important character in the entire movie is Jean Ainslie, perfectly played by Penelope Wilton. Without the inclusion of this character, the movie would veer into annoyingly sappy territory, seeming to suggest that India is a paradise, and that moving there would make anyone blissfully happy and solve all of life’s troubles. Jean is just a wonderful character. She has a brilliant moment in the beginning when she refuses to accept (with a smile) the marginalized stereotype society insists on forcing her into. What an unhappy woman! The people she wants to impress refuse to see her, and she refuses to see that a life based on anything other than social status could be satisfying. Her obsession with Tom Wilkinson’s character clearly shows her deluded fixation on appearances and lack of ability to imagine what lies beneath. Obviously she has no idea what she wants. But she does know one thing for sure—she doesn’t want to live in India at the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. And she shouldn’t have to.
I’ve been a huge fan of Tom Wilkinson since Michael Clayton. His brilliant performance as bipolar lawyer Arthur Edens is one of my favorites of all time, so Wilkinson has already won me over. He’s wonderful here as Graham Dashwood, the charismatic retired barrister motivated by secret-upon-secret. The thrust of his storyline was a delightful surprise, and I really liked the way that the outcome of his story affected, moved, and motivated the other characters.
Judi Dench as Evelyn Greenslade is more the protagonist than any other character, particularly because she sometimes narrates in the form of blog entries. Evelyn is a protagonist that it’s easy to root for. Not only is Dench talented and charming, but Evelyn’s character approaches her life with such raw and honest searching. Her husband has died. Her money is gone. But she isn’t looking for easy answers or immediate gratification. She’s not hunting for a new husband or an easy fortune. She’s looking for something far more profound—and possibly less exciting—than any of that. Even though she has grown old, Evelyn is still growing. She doesn’t know what life is all about, but she doesn’t let that stop her from living. She really wants to live, and she sets the tone for the movie.
Bill Nighy is so charming as Douglas Ainslie, a character with seemingly effortless humor and endless grace who sees the world so differently from his miserable wife. It’s quite obvious that he deserves some appreciation.
Now Maggie Smith’s Muriel Donnelly is the biggest revelation of the movie, simply because she was perfectly winning as a venomous yet vulnerable racist. I would have been content with a static character because Smith’s performance was so good, and the character felt so real. But there’s a lot more to Muriel. She just keeps getting better and better and better and better. As always Smith gives a fantastic performance, and Muriel becomes absolutely indispensable to the resolution of the story.
Ronald Pickup as Norman Cousins and Celia Imrie as Madge Hardcastle have a bit less to do than the others, but they’re still perfectly charming (and not devoid of realizations and development) though their roles obviously cannot be as extensive as some of the others in a two-hour movie.
Dev Patel is wonderful as the scatter-brained optimist Sonny Kapoor. He’s the sort of larger-than-life character you’d find jumping off a page by Charles Dickens. I thoroughly fell in love with the character and preferred Patel’s performance here to his more celebrated turn in Slumdog Millionaire. He often makes us laugh by saying outrageous things which (on closer inspection) turn out to be perfectly true (his thoughts on how other countries treat the elderly, for example). Sonny’s zany enthusiasm is infectious, although his slowness to declare his feelings to his girlfriend sometimes gets to be a bit much.
Playing his girlfriend Sunaina, Tena Desae is phenomenally gorgeous. This particular subplot (the romance between Sunaina and Sonny) feels like the least necessary part of the story and could easily be cut. But Desae’s beauty and vivacious performance makes us not mind its inclusion. (Thankfully Sunaina’s brother also shows up in the movie as an example of a young Indian man who is the antithesis of Sonny in behavior, comportment, and world view.)
The Negatives:
Like I just said, the romance between Sunaina and Sonny is definitely the weakest part of the story, and the way in which the tension between Sonny and his overbearing mother is resolved feels incredibly contrived, insanely rushed, and, well, flat-out fake.
Also, because the movie focuses on the points of view of the British guests, it does not really provide an objective portrait of India.
Now don’t get me wrong. I left the theater wanting to go to India. (Maybe I’ll accompany my husband on a business trip to Bangalore some day!) But this movie isn’t really about India. It’s about a bunch of British people dealing with retirement. So it’s probably not doing justice to the complex reality of India today. It brings up issues like the existence of the caste system, and the falling away of old values in the face of Western influence. But it doesn’t really do justice to these topics. Sonny sees life through the lens of a Romantic, and he portrays the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that way to possible customers. But even though the movie shows you what the crumbling building actually looks like, and occasionally mentions smelly streets and harsh customs, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ultimately romanticizes and mystifies India about as much as, say, a travel narrative by Marco Polo.
Overall:
I loved The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. If you hated Battleship, you might want to give this a try. The performances are uniformly excellent, the characters are rich and dynamic, and the setting is vibrant and exciting. It may not change your life (though don’t be surprised if you find a kernel of wisdom or two to latch onto), but it’s definitely a pleasant way to spend two hours. I can’t wait to own it on Blu-ray.