The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

When I say that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (affectionately dubbed “Old People in India” by yours truly) is the anti-Avengers, I mean that in a good way, honestly.  Everything that The Avengers is, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is not, and vice versa.  None of this is to the film’s detriment, however, because there’s no reason the two films can’t come out the same weekend at the box office – and no reason I can’t enjoy both.

Director John Madden (of Shakespeare in Love, some of whose alums appear here) guides a cast of every elder British thespian (save Peter O’Toole, who was considered and whose absence here is a loss for us all) in a story of retirees who are misled by a garrulous advertisement for a retirement home “for the elderly and beautiful” owned and operated by the young Dev Patel (known to American audiences from Slumdog Millionaire).

Judi Dench is Evelyn, a blogger and young soul making the most of her experience; Tom Wilkinson is Graham, a former judge who grew up in India and has returned to seek out a former flame; Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton (“Harriet Jones, MP”) are the married couple Douglas and Jean, at odds about their future prospects and in conflict over Douglas’s perennial optimism; and Maggie Smith is the scene-stealing Muriel, a crotchety and xenophobic (but, in the classic British tradition, eminently endearing) candidate for a hip replacement.

The stakes are not high here; there’s no world to save or, for the most part, character flaws to overcome (though Wilton and Smith do excellent work rendering their characters as, at best, difficult to love).  There are no superpowers or flamboyant costumes.  Nothing blows up.  So how does The Cinema King, who gave The Avengers such a rave review, like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?

Surprisingly, for the same reason I enjoyed The Avengers – a fun (but still emotionally compelling) story populated by entertaining characters portrayed by actors at the top of their game.  The obvious draw here likely isn’t the fish-out-of-water story (the trailers never touted that it was adapted from a book by Deborah Moggach) nor the exotic scenery.  Instead, the main attraction is the all-star cast of Britain’s most talented, all of whom bring their A-game to the table.  It’d be folly simply to catalog the actors and laud them individually, but their skills bear highlighting. 

Dench is charming and grandmotherly, as always, the kind of woman with whom you’d like to vacation.  Wilkinson handles his plotline with his trademark staid countenance, loosening up once in a while when he realizes retirement isn’t all serious business.  While Smith is more entertaining than one might expect from this movie – I had no idea her character was going to be so racist until her first scene – she might bring a tear to your eye as she begins to bond with one of the “untouchables.”  And Nighy and Wilton have perhaps the hardest job of all, Nighy repressing his natural charm to portray a man browbeaten by Wilton, who’s unwontedly shrewish and tasked with being the only unlikeable character in the piece. 

Even Patel, whose work in Slumdog Millionaire didn’t knock me out the way it did every other major film critic in the world, has fun here, resisting the apparent urge to pigeonhole by performing the stereotypical Indian figure (everything is “most beautiful” or “of the highest honor” and “we have a saying in India”), but when he’s among family and friends, he’s perfectly normal and speaks like everyone else in the film.  It’s a subtle distinction, but one which is much needed in a film which could very easily fall into the “empire coming back” trope.

All told, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a satisfying film with a gifted cast who could redeem even an episode of Jersey Shore by ethos alone.  While it’s one of the quieter movies you’ll see all year, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a perfect counterpoint to the high-octane action of the traditional summer blockbuster.

If nothing else, you’ll be calling your travel agent asking if Judi Dench is free for a weekend in New Delhi.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is rated PG-13 “for sexual content and language.”  The UK's stock character of the libidinous old man accompanies our crew, attempting to meet ladies left and right, jesting all the while about it; additionally, the sexual relationship of the hotel’s owner with his girlfriend becomes the topic of discussion several times.  There’s one F-bomb and a few remarks which I suspect are more scandalous for a British audience than for us Yanks.