User Reviews

Ever wondered what the cue to get into heaven at St. Peter's Gates is going to look like? Try standing in line for a preview screening of this little gem. The Daily Mail readers were out in force this morning, free tickets in hand and storming the cinema, to catch this charming story of a bunch of old folks retiring in India. Like the line for entry to heaven, there was regretfully the odd young person in the audience, no doubt terrified at the prospect of leaving their life behind to sit with all the oldies for what might seem like eternity.

But fortunately The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a charmer and even the youngest viewers will find something to enjoy here. Whether it's Bill Nighy, again stealing the film from under the noses of an accomplished ensemble (see also Love Actually) or the sweet love story of the films only younger characters, the film has enough unexpected moments to mask the more predictable and clichéd elements of the story.

When seven British retirees opt to 'outsource' their retirements to cheap and cheerful India, they arrive at a hotel that is not as expected from the brochure. Dev Patel's Sonny runs the place under the watchful eye of his disapproving mother and the visitors are left to dust off the furniture and make do with the cockroaches on the floors and the curry served up every dinnertime.

The stars of the movie are delightful; Judi Dench does vulnerable but determined; Bill Nighy funny and heartbreaking; and Tom Wilkinson quiet, reserved and struggling with an unexpected burden. It is a story of seven characters facing up to a new time of their lives with new challenges and new loves presenting themselves. It is a hopeful story about letting go of the past and embracing the future.

Like any film set in the country, India is a central character. The colours, the faces, the smiles, the sounds, the hustle and bustle of the packed streets all assault the senses, not just for the characters but also for the viewer. You might see less of the real India than many would like, but it is always present in the background.

The love stories are touching with the ups and downs of relationships sensitively written. The unwinding of Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton's Douglas and Jean is particularly well handled and bound to induce the odd tear once the inevitable finally happens. Wilkinson's search for a lost love is concluded a little too conveniently and lacks the emotional gut-punch it could have. But all the characters get their moments in the spotlight; whether it is bigoted old racist Maggie Smith's opening of her heart to the locals or Ronald Pickup's desperate search for a last bit of nookie (ahem sorry… meaningful connection).

The elderly members of the audience loved it, laughing heartily from the opening moments of Dench on the phone to her internet service provider. More unsettling was how many found Maggie Smith's Muriel and her hideously outdated racist comments at the beginning even funnier. Hopefully the Daily Mail readers, like Muriel, will come away from the film with a slightly enlightened view of the world outside their doors.

Overall, Dench and Nighy are the standouts, but Wilkinson also gets a strong storyline in a film chock-full to the brim with colour, joy, a little bit of sadness and hardship and a lot of hope. Just like India itself then.

We are introduced to a number of people:

Evelyn (Judi Dench) has lost her husband after 40 years and is struggling to cope with the debts he left;

Recently retired civil servant Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton), penniless due to investing in their daughter's unsuccessful business, are appalled at the prospect of a retirement flat in an old folks' compound;

Madge (Celia Imrie) may be faded, but isn't ready to call it a day yet;

Muriel (Maggie Smith), embittered after a lifetime in service and the disappearance of her country behind faces she doesn't recognise, finds her much-needed hip replacement outsourced to a cheaper provider;

Graham (Tom Wilkinson) retires as a judge and decides he must try to find something he lost in his youth; and

Ageing old goat Norman decides to pursue the hunt somewhere new.

These 7 people, for their different reasons, find themselves in Jaipur, the first residents of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (for the Old and Beautiful), an establishment which does not quite reach the photoshopped standards of its brochure, and which is run with more enthusiasm than acumen by Sonny (Dev Patel).

Yes, folks, it's another movie about old people. But it has a classy cast, a sparkling script, some genuinely affecting character arcs (Sunny, too has things going on), and the sights and sounds of India.

I saw this in a cinema full of people who, like myself, are no longer in the full flush of youth, and there was a strong sense of identification. But that's not the end of it, because the film is much stronger than that. There was a lot of laughter - much of this film is very funny, and there are some terrific one liners - and an appreciation of the performances. Of course, with a cast of this calibre, one expects no less than first rate, but they all deliver at least to that expected standard. I particularly liked Penelope Wilton's brittle Jean, let down and angry, but always putting the very British cheery public face over the top of her deep unhappiness, and Bill Nighy as husband Douglas, kind, positive, faithful and loyal and, perhaps, capable of being provoked beyond the point where he can bear it any more. Yet all are excellent.

This film is warm, witty, funny, touching, and deep but without being preachy. Even though it is only February, 2012 will have to come up with something special to produce a better film this year.

If there were an English international acting team, like football, this cast would have won fifty caps each often playing together in the same team. Each took their familiar roles such as a feisty Judy Dench, a thoroughly decent Tom Wilkinson, a xenophobic Maggie Smith and all played well. It just needed Juliet Stevenson, Julie Walters, Hugh Grant and Helen Mirren to appear in cameo roles as substitutes at half time. India also put in a stunning performance. The problem was the predictable script which began to drag after a good first hour. Bill Nighy could have ditched Penelope Wilton far sooner and saved about ten minutes. I kept feeling that I had seen the film before especially with all the actors playing in familiar positions. It was all too neat and everything came together all at the same time. A couple of other things didn't work either. I know it was supposed to have comic aspects but Dev Patel's stereotype might even have embarrassed Peter Sellars. However the most incongruous moment was when Maggie Smith suddenly revealed herself no longer a senile old nanny who used to manage a household budget but someone who could glance at a set of accounts and instantly assess a hotel business. I enjoyed it but it was really was a remake of Lavender Ladies' Room with a View of Cranford's Calendar Girls with Mussolini.

Seven elderly English people move to India. They do this because they have been lured by promises of a golden retirement, far from the drizzle and depression of Dorking. Naturally, when they arrive in the East, things are not as they expected. Obstacles must be overcome, new ways of living must be learned, and people find they must let go of the past. Can these sixty-and-seventy-somethings overcome their prejudices, and forge a new life in the Third World?

This being a British middle-class attempt at a comedy-drama, you can round up the usual suspects … Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie (what happened to Richard Briers and Maria Aitken? Were they tied up in pantomime in Leatherhead?) To be a successful TV and film actor in England, you must (a) speak with a cut-glass accent and (b) have been born before World War Two. The script is derived from a novel (aren't they all?) and so it has to be given an injection of life – the slow, contemplative pace of a prose work doesn't translate well to the big screen. This is done by tagging-on a bunch of one-line gags. Screen writer Ol Parker has done his best, but Bob Hope this isn't. India is "the Costa Brava … but with more elephants", and we even get that old chestnut, "If she dies, she dies!"

No-one, it seems, can make a film about India without descending into the most irritating of clichés (ever seen "City of Joy"?) The much-lauded "Slumdog Millionaire" was a major offender in this respect, and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" fares no better. One imagines that this project was chosen for three reasons: first, there was a novel already in being (most film-makers can't or won't trust their own judgment, and always resort to the crutch of a pre-existing work to base their movie on), second, with a cast of seven geriatrics, it was perfect for Britain's talent pool of actors and third, India looms large in the British consciousness. If the threadbare Empire thing is finally receding, there are many educated British people who have backpacked their way around Goa and Uttar Pradesh in their student days, and are also vaguely aware of India as an "emerging economy", so there might be money to be made from an Anglo-Indian film. So why the stereotypes? To say this film's understanding of India is skin-deep is not being very complimentary … towards skin.

India in 2012 is a burgeoning modern state, with its own nuclear weapons and its own space program. In a population of 1.2 billion, there are quite a few switched-on individuals who know about stuff. But in Western films, we stubbornly insist on patronizing this vast and vibrant culture. You know the sort of thing. Get to India and you can't trust the water, can't trust the food, can't trust the drivers. Sonny (Dev Patel) is the young dreamer whose ramshackle hotel forms the setting of the story, and guess what – he is delightful, charming, unrealistic and not entirely honest. In other words, he is a child. Adorable, but a child.

And there's the rub. Like "City of Joy" and "Slumdog Millionaire", this film feeds into the assumption that Indians are inferior. They don't have our standards. Efficiency, propriety, hygiene – these are Western characteristics. You enter the maelstrom when you set out on an Indian road, because – bless them – they are suicidal maniacs when they get behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle. And they eat funny food.

What becomes of our Surbiton Seven after they've exchanged Cheam for Chandigarh? Well, it's all fairly predictable. They go through a phase of disillusionment, then they learn to love the Indians, and it all gets nice and heart-warming. Evelyn, Judi Dench's character, starts working in a call center and Muriel (Maggie Smith) takes a look at the hotel books. Before you can say "poppadum", the call center is a raging success, because Evelyn shows the operators how to interact with callers. The hotel is turned around, because now somebody with skill is controlling the finances. You see? That's all India needed – for two elderly women to show up and tell the locals what to do. Never mind that Muriel is a dyed-in-the-wool racist and Evelyn has never actually had a job of any kind in her life.

As for Norman (Ronald Pickup), he is the Reigate Romeo who can't accept the aging process and the loss of sexual potency. Know what happens? He meets an English woman who's lived all her life in India, and they fall in love. The Subcontinent has worked its magic again. The only thing is, why couldn't he fall in love with an Indian woman?

In the final analysis, the film doesn't work because these people are not touched by India. They go there, but they remain, psychologically, in Wimbledon. India is a success only in so far as it submits to Western ways of doing things. Sunny decides he's going to marry Sunaina (Tena Desae), even though she's from an inferior caste, because he wants to – and love conquers all, doesn't it? Never mind that they are both Hindus, living in an ancient Hindu civilization, with its time-honored ways of doing things. The Western quick fix is the way to go. How nice for us, to be able to breathe in India's aromas, glory in its colors, solve all its problems within hours of arriving … and still remain stranded, psychologically, in Surrey.

In her blog, Evelyn Greenslade (Judi Dench) wrote that she, like her fellow expats, had to adapt. Ironically enough I must have missed the part where they "adapt" because I cannot remember any of the characters adapting to anything in Jaipur, with the possible exception of Muriel (Maggie Smith) who appears to be slightly less racist by the end. Evelyn, for all her talks on "adapting" is the one teaching the locales about British telephone etiquette and customs. Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) also teaches the youths the intricacies of cricket. Norman (Ronald Pickup) finally meets a woman he likes in Jaipur... a British woman! Muriel proves to be a much better hotel manager than the natives... and ends up managing the joint. The movie reeks with imperialism which is surprising in the 21st century. The narrative is predictable to the extreme, there is no one single event/piece of dialogue/development that you do not foresee a mile ahead. There are more clichés per square minute than many stories I watched or read recently. Yes I am a bit intrigued by the fact that on Rottentomatoes.com and Metacritic.com the film appears to rank favorably with reviewers as well as with the general public. However I just happen to disagree with most of them and to side with one scribe who wrote of the colossal waste of talent amalgamated here. The reason I give TBEMH a 5 and not a 1 is the actors who absolutely provide their very best; but at the end it was not enough and Graham Dashwood expresses it in ways I can not possibly replicate: he dies of boredom.

I have never taken the time to write a review on a film, but after seeing this last night I just felt the need to! The cast were fantastic! I love Celia Imrie, Maggie Smith and Judy Dench. I have never been a fan of Bill Nighy but am now a convert. And who can forget Dev Patel, my how he's come on since his days of being in Skins! The story lines were acted superbly and I fell in love with all of the characters for different reasons! The setting of the film was inspired and showed India as it should be, it has in fact made me want to visit there and experience it for myself.

The storyline that I identified with the most was with the gay man meeting his long lost love again, I was in tears at that point! In the cinema everyone was roaring with laughter exactly where they should be, its like everyone in the cinema understood the film as much as the people they were sat next to! As you can see my review writing needs a bit of work, but I just wanted to hammer it home that this film has to be seen! I will be buying it on DVD as soon as its released! I haven't come out of a film, smiling as much as I was, for a very long time! Top marks :)

John Madden's film is not a comedy, but rather a fine example of good old "Orientalism". Seven retired Brits go to India, to the "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", to spend the "autumn of life". British (financial) conditions do not allow them to be relaxed in the last years of their lives, but India does. One of them is a bigot, but in India she will denounce her bigotry (not explicitly though, we are just left to guess that). Another one is a widowed housewife, who will nonetheless manage to find a job in India. All the Indian characters in the movie do is to depend, one way or another, on the Brits. Without the latter, the former are nothing. The owner of the hotel is a young Indian apparently with no skills for business. Eventually, it will be the former bigot caretaker (!) who will become the hotel's assistant manager, and thus save it from ruin, something that the young Indian manager was of course not able to do. He is even quoting Kipling: the colonized is hence truly admiring the colonizer. His lover is a graduate student working in a call center, the typical outsourcing job characteristic of the economically colonialist relationship between the "West" and countries such as India, yet this is presented as the "modern India". The former English housewife, who never had a job in her entire life, will end up teaching the young call-center workers how to proper speak English with their customers. (After explaining to the manager of the call-center what "to dunk" means: if colonialism brought English to India, only post-colonialism gets to such linguistic nuances). Tom Wilkinson plays a retired judge who comes to India in order to see his former (gay) lover. The nostalgia of the good old times of the empire is blatant. Yet the movie goes further than that: the former gay lover had an arranged marriage, yet both his wife and himself were happy with that, leading a tranquil and relaxed life. Really??? Last, but not least, there are some romances in the movie: India is rejuvenating the retired Brits (once again, an expression of the imperial gaze upon the colonized, perceived as bringing life to the aged empire), but no inter-ethnic romance is present. Retired Brits go to India to find some other retired Brits and fall in love again. Mingling with the Indians is done only in order to patronize and explain to them what life really means, be it in terms of market economy or romance. An intellectually obnoxious experience.

The young owner of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel states that his establishment has a great future because there are countries that don't want any old people around. It was a moment that struck me as brutally honest and heartbreaking at the same time. Unfortunately "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" doesn't have enough moments like that. But despite the rather old-fashioned sensibility of the film and its desire to sacrifice realism for clichés, I simply couldn't dislike this movie. The cast is first rate. Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson are excellent as a widower seeking independence and a judge returning to India in search of forgiveness. Maggie Smith is a contentious bigot; Bill Nighy is the wimpy husband of harpy Penelope Wilton and Ronald Pickup and Celia Imrie are lonely singles trying to prove they haven't lost it. Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) is the frantic dreamer who believes he can make a success of the rundown hotel he inherits from his father. "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is a mixed bag. The predictable script made me flinch once or twice but I enjoyed the performances and the Indian scenery and cinematography enough to recommend it.