Synopsis:
A small group of British retirees learn that the life they want to live might not be the life they need to live after pooling their resources to spend their twilight years in India. Upon arriving at the once-opulent Marigold Hotel, however, the eager pensioners come to realize that rumors of the building's restoration have been greatly exaggerated. But just when it starts to seem that the privileged seniors have been swindled out of their life savings, they summon the courage to sever their ties to the past, and embrace their new life with a sense of wonder and adventure. Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and Dev Patel star in this uplifting comedy-drama from director John Madden (The Debt, Shakespeare in Love).
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Hollywood Movie Reviews:
An all-star comedy in the same vein as such crowd-pleasers as The Full Monty, Calendar Girls and other British charmers, John Madden's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the kind of movie they seldom make anymore -- except in England. When they try to do it in America, you wind up with something like Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve -- or worse.
Based on the novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (opening in limited release May 4) brings together Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith and a few others for a seductive fish-out-of-water tale. And I'm using "fish" in the plural.
The aforementioned stars all play British pensioners who, for their own reasons, are disappointed with what retirement has meant for them in England. They're feeling outmoded in a fast-moving country, or undone by an economy that means their money isn't stretching as far as it should. Or they're simply lonely, residing minus a spouse in a community where they don't know anyone else.
So they all fall for an Internet pitch, advertising a new retirement home for Brits in lovely Jaipur, India. The hotel promises old-school British manners -- circa the age of the Raj -- at a fraction of the price of living in England. And the weather is better.
They're a mixed lot: Evelyn (Dench) is a widow whose husband left her with a pile of debt; Graham (Wilkinson) is a judge who suddenly sees the light at a friend's retirement party and calls it quits himself; Doug and Jean (Nighy and Penelope Wilton) are a couple who invested everything in their daughter's failed Internet start-up. Muriel (Smith) is a retired housekeeper who needs a hip replacement, which would take months to get in England but only a couple of weeks in India; Madge (Celia Imrie) is a better-off widow in search of a new man. And Norman (Ronald Pickup) is an aging roué, on the prowl for women.
They arrive to find that the hotel, an ancient, dusty place, isn't quite finished with its renovation. But the proprietor, Sonny (Dev Patel), promises grand things - though the rest of his family would rather sell the aging property for the land value.
What follows is sort of the opposite of a coming-of-age story: It's a new-beginnings tale, with most of these people finding something they thought they'd never have again, whether it's love, companionship or a new way to employ long-dormant talents.The movie provides all of those things in spades, along with a surprising tenderness about aging and a few delicately handled romances that allow the performers to open up with remarkable ease. WIth a cast including Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson, none of these actors lack for work exactly, but all are much more likely to play authoritative, austere presences as backup to the younger stars than to take the spotlight as they do here. The generous script and probably too-generous running time (nearly two hours) leave plenty of room for every character and storyline to develop, and though the stakes are fairly low in Marigold Hotel, it's eager to charm and has just enough talent to accomplish that.
We meet all of our leads in a breezy prologue, meeting all these British folks of a certain age with their various reasons to leave town-- the bored barrister (Wilkinson), the adrift widow (Dench), the flat-broke couple (Nighy and Penelope Wilton), the cranky cuss in need of a cheap hip replacement (Smith), and two freer spirits (Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup) who are mostly bored with the British dating scene and itching for a change. They've been lured to Jaipur, India by a glossy brochure for the "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful" but arrive to find a barely-functional ruin of a hotel run by Sonny (Dev Patel), a scatterbrained but sweet kid who's more about big ideas than actual business savvy.
Wilton's Jean is overwhelmed by the mayhem of Jaipur, which puts a wrench in her marriage, but the others slowly thrive-- Dench takes a job training call center reps in British customs, Imrie and Pickup start helping each other seek out romantic conquests, Smith recovers from surgery and befriends a servant, and Wilkinson goes on a hunt for a childhood friend who's the source of a lot of guilt about the past. As in any story about this many characters, the narratives float in and out of focus, and Wilton's story at least feels badly served by the film-- she makes a failed attempt at an affair and constantly belittles her husband, all before we've come to know her at all. But the broad narrative also allows some surprising threads to emerge, like the slow-burn attraction between Dench or Nighy, or Sonny's attempts to make his mother (Lillete Dubey) accept both his business dreams and his girlfriend (Tena Desae).
The entire film occasionally suffers from being just a little too much-- too much melodrama in the third act, too much voiceover from Dench as she writes platitudes in her journal, and too much focus on visual metaphors for the retirees and their transformation, like a lingering shot of an egret flying into the sky. But Madden is also skilled with telling big ensemble stories, and Marigold Hotel may feel fluffy and breezy until you suddenly realize you're genuinely invested in these characters and their second lease on life. Madden and his gifted cast take this glossy, formulaic Indian vacation and invest it with heart and honesty-- not greatness, exactly, but enough goodness to satisfy.
Movie cast & crew:
Release Date: 09 May 2012
Genre: Comedy
Language: English
Director: John Madden
Producer: Graham Broadbent
Judi Dench
Bill Nighy
Dev Patel
A small group of British retirees learn that the life they want to live might not be the life they need to live after pooling their resources to spend their twilight years in India. Upon arriving at the once-opulent Marigold Hotel, however, the eager pensioners come to realize that rumors of the building's restoration have been greatly exaggerated. But just when it starts to seem that the privileged seniors have been swindled out of their life savings, they summon the courage to sever their ties to the past, and embrace their new life with a sense of wonder and adventure. Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and Dev Patel star in this uplifting comedy-drama from director John Madden (The Debt, Shakespeare in Love).
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Hollywood Movie Reviews:
An all-star comedy in the same vein as such crowd-pleasers as The Full Monty, Calendar Girls and other British charmers, John Madden's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the kind of movie they seldom make anymore -- except in England. When they try to do it in America, you wind up with something like Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve -- or worse.
Based on the novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (opening in limited release May 4) brings together Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith and a few others for a seductive fish-out-of-water tale. And I'm using "fish" in the plural.
The aforementioned stars all play British pensioners who, for their own reasons, are disappointed with what retirement has meant for them in England. They're feeling outmoded in a fast-moving country, or undone by an economy that means their money isn't stretching as far as it should. Or they're simply lonely, residing minus a spouse in a community where they don't know anyone else.
So they all fall for an Internet pitch, advertising a new retirement home for Brits in lovely Jaipur, India. The hotel promises old-school British manners -- circa the age of the Raj -- at a fraction of the price of living in England. And the weather is better.
They're a mixed lot: Evelyn (Dench) is a widow whose husband left her with a pile of debt; Graham (Wilkinson) is a judge who suddenly sees the light at a friend's retirement party and calls it quits himself; Doug and Jean (Nighy and Penelope Wilton) are a couple who invested everything in their daughter's failed Internet start-up. Muriel (Smith) is a retired housekeeper who needs a hip replacement, which would take months to get in England but only a couple of weeks in India; Madge (Celia Imrie) is a better-off widow in search of a new man. And Norman (Ronald Pickup) is an aging roué, on the prowl for women.
They arrive to find that the hotel, an ancient, dusty place, isn't quite finished with its renovation. But the proprietor, Sonny (Dev Patel), promises grand things - though the rest of his family would rather sell the aging property for the land value.
What follows is sort of the opposite of a coming-of-age story: It's a new-beginnings tale, with most of these people finding something they thought they'd never have again, whether it's love, companionship or a new way to employ long-dormant talents.The movie provides all of those things in spades, along with a surprising tenderness about aging and a few delicately handled romances that allow the performers to open up with remarkable ease. WIth a cast including Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson, none of these actors lack for work exactly, but all are much more likely to play authoritative, austere presences as backup to the younger stars than to take the spotlight as they do here. The generous script and probably too-generous running time (nearly two hours) leave plenty of room for every character and storyline to develop, and though the stakes are fairly low in Marigold Hotel, it's eager to charm and has just enough talent to accomplish that.
We meet all of our leads in a breezy prologue, meeting all these British folks of a certain age with their various reasons to leave town-- the bored barrister (Wilkinson), the adrift widow (Dench), the flat-broke couple (Nighy and Penelope Wilton), the cranky cuss in need of a cheap hip replacement (Smith), and two freer spirits (Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup) who are mostly bored with the British dating scene and itching for a change. They've been lured to Jaipur, India by a glossy brochure for the "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful" but arrive to find a barely-functional ruin of a hotel run by Sonny (Dev Patel), a scatterbrained but sweet kid who's more about big ideas than actual business savvy.
Wilton's Jean is overwhelmed by the mayhem of Jaipur, which puts a wrench in her marriage, but the others slowly thrive-- Dench takes a job training call center reps in British customs, Imrie and Pickup start helping each other seek out romantic conquests, Smith recovers from surgery and befriends a servant, and Wilkinson goes on a hunt for a childhood friend who's the source of a lot of guilt about the past. As in any story about this many characters, the narratives float in and out of focus, and Wilton's story at least feels badly served by the film-- she makes a failed attempt at an affair and constantly belittles her husband, all before we've come to know her at all. But the broad narrative also allows some surprising threads to emerge, like the slow-burn attraction between Dench or Nighy, or Sonny's attempts to make his mother (Lillete Dubey) accept both his business dreams and his girlfriend (Tena Desae).
The entire film occasionally suffers from being just a little too much-- too much melodrama in the third act, too much voiceover from Dench as she writes platitudes in her journal, and too much focus on visual metaphors for the retirees and their transformation, like a lingering shot of an egret flying into the sky. But Madden is also skilled with telling big ensemble stories, and Marigold Hotel may feel fluffy and breezy until you suddenly realize you're genuinely invested in these characters and their second lease on life. Madden and his gifted cast take this glossy, formulaic Indian vacation and invest it with heart and honesty-- not greatness, exactly, but enough goodness to satisfy.
Movie cast & crew:
Release Date: 09 May 2012
Genre: Comedy
Language: English
Director: John Madden
Producer: Graham Broadbent
Judi Dench
Bill Nighy
Dev Patel