A thoroughly enjoyable romantic comedy with a great cast. Read 3 and half stars for it.
’.Such a lovely place.’ with this idea and fooled by photoshoped photo of a hotel in Jaipur, seven British oldies(6, if you count a husband and wife as single, only they are as different as different could be) come to the’Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ to have some fun, some exotic flavor, and cheap way to spend their retirement days, without having to spend much money.
Well, retirement can’t be outsourced without being in your own shoes. You can’t reach heaven without dying. The hotel turns out to be dingy, with missing doors, leaking taps, dead telephones, etc. The promised land(hotel) being just a promise, the worn-out travelers resign to the fate of stay yet carry on with their agendas: cheap hip replacement surgery, finding one’s gay partner of bygone days, finding the royalty and sex, finding a job.and above all, the non-agenda that comes to them: finding love and meaning in life. And each of these seven finds that. The turnaround comes for the life of each one of them, for the hotel, and for Sonny who runs the hotel, as well.
The movie is real fun with lot of gallows humor, corny at times. Such as when Norman is asked’Isn’t it risky to have sex at your age?’ he replies’If she dies, she dies.’ The scene where Sunaina(Tena Desae), naked, gets into the bed of one old lady from the group thinking it’s her lover, Sonny(Dev Patel), the hotel manager, is really hilarious with the ensuing confusion.
The movie does not have much of a plotline and is largely character driven. There is nothing which is really unpredictable, yet, small suspenses and anticipations add to the interest of the movie. People come and go, meet and play their roles and do a good job of it. Apart from Sonny, there is not much focus on Indian characters but they mingle significantly with the lives of the British seniors. This focus has prevented bigger roles to good actors like Rajendra Gupta and Neena Kulkarni. Anyway, the important roles are played by very accomplished actors. Judi Dench plays Evelyn, a recently widowed and penniless housewife. She finds a job and love too. Bill Nighy plays Douglas, the husband who’s keeping up a dying marriage out of a sense of loyalty and Penelope Wilton plays his frazzled wife who can’t stand India. They learn a bitter but necessary truth. Maggie Smith is Muriel, an ex-housekeeper, who is a racist but has to come to India for hip replacement. She does undergo a radical change and is decisive in bringing a change in the fortune of the hotel and the hotel owner. Tom Wilkinson plays Graham, an about to retire judge, who has come to India to find someone he knew intimately and to find peace with himself. Ronald Pickup plays Norman, who still cant keep it still in his pants and on a lookout just as is Madge(Celia Imrie) who wants to have fun too. Dev Patel plays Sonny Kapoor who runs the hotel, Lillette Dubey plays his strong-minded mother who wouldn’t let him marry his girlfriend Sunaina(Tena Desae) she being of a different community. And she wants to wind up the hotel business because it is making loss. Dev Patel’s character is made quite enthusiastic and eloquent, with a little of off-English, a good front man but perhaps not a very good manager.
The lives of all these characters intersect in little and big ways. The result is a revelation of human nature and life in a touching and a very funny way, too. There are many serious moments, even tragic moments in the movie but humor and wit are never far away. Even the emotional scene when Sonny storms in to declare his love for Sunaina very passionately is quite funny, with Sunaina’s brother, Jay, acting as the via media to whom both address their comments and at one point Sonny says, "I love you, and, when I say I love you, I don’t mean you, Jay."
The movie borrows a line from Om Shanti Om: If it doesn’t end well, it is not the end. It conforms to a fatalistic Indian way of life, a faith-in-fate or in god driven philosophy. In the resolving of the financial troubles and of the love angle, this can be seen clearly. This gives a little of formulaic touch to the movie. Also, because too many characters and issues have been crammed in, a single stealing or cathartic effect is not there. Still, the way India has been shown to grow on the characters is enjoyable.
There is a death and one lover’s union, rather, more than one union of lovers, in the movie.
John Madden has done a good job as a director. He has pushed India to a sort of background, a vibrant background though. This brings a sort of objectivity and a better focus on characters. The movie could have been more intense with fewer characters and a deeper focus on thematic issues but then it would’ve had been less interesting, less humorous and maybe, slow too. The director has done a good job, keeping the speed of the movie fast, even with old persons’ stories. The feel of India is given well, not intensely like that by Ray, but in a fast, yet solid way to establish the local color with its buses, hens on streets, the traffic, the dirt etc. Within the scenes of the hotel and in the city, Jaipur, the camerawork is good . Background songs are there.
It would be interesting to read the novel These Foolish Things on which the movie is based. It is a movie about old people for the most part but that shouldn’t make anyone think it is for old people only. It is a movie everyone can enjoy. In fact, it is a movie one can enjoy in a certain relaxed way.
It’s good to know I am the first one to review it on Mouthshut. Thankfully, I was in USA to have watched it before its release in India.