A vintage performance
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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (12A, 123
mins)
Comedy/Drama/Romance. Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith,
Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, Ronald
Pickup, Dev Patel, Lillete Dubey, Tena Desae. Director: John
Madden.
Adapted from Deborah Moggach's novel These Foolish Things, The
Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a hilarious and touching comedy about
growing old disgracefully.
Ol Parker's warm and witty script provides the predominantly
British cast with moments to shine and tug our heartstrings as love
is lost and found beneath a foreign sun.
Director John Madden, who previously helmed the Oscar-winning
Shakespeare In Love, captures a different side to life in modern
India than the poverty and crime of Slumdog Millionaire.
The teeming streets of Rajasthan burst with colour and vitality
and composer Thomas Newman adds plenty of spice with his evocative
score.
Performances are an embarrassment of riches, from Maggie Smith's
racist housekeeper, who surveys a black nurse at her local hospital
and sneers, "He can wash all he likes - that colour's not coming
out", to Penelope Wilton's well-to-do wife, who constantly
belittles her husband, telling him, "When I want your opinion, I'll
give it to you."
Our opinion of Madden's film is extremely favourable.
Evelyn (Judi Dench) has recently lost her husband and is coming
to terms with solitude in her twilight years.
Determined to start anew, she abandons Britain for the balmier
climes of Jaipur and a grand retirement home called The Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel.
En route, Evelyn meets six other retirees all bound for this
"luxury development for residents in their golden years":
cantankerous wheelchair user Muriel (Smith), who is bypassing the
NHS waiting lists to undergo a hip replacement abroad; waspish snob
Jean (Wilton) and her long-suffering husband Douglas (Bill Nighy);
retired judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson); incorrigible ladies' man
Norman (Ronald Pickup); and love-hungry spinster Madge (Celia
Imrie).
When the exhausted travellers arrive at their destination, they
discover a building in disrepair and an inexperienced manager,
Sonny (Dev Patel), struggling to keep the creditors off his
back.
"I have a dream to outsource old age. And it is not just for the
British. There are other countries that hate old age!" he excitedly
informs his dubious guests.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a delight, milking laughter
and tears as characters reach crossroads in their lives.
Like The King's Speech, it's a film with appeal across the
generations, tapping into universal fears of being forgotten in old
age.
Dench is the emotional heart, narrating drolly in voiceover,
while Wilkinson delivers a beautifully nuanced performance as a man
with heartbreaking ties to India.
Imrie and Pickup are delicious comic relief, the latter asked at
one point, "Aren't you scared about having sex at your age?"
Without missing a beat, he replies, "If she dies, she dies!"
Smith is in imperious form as a xenophobic working-class
battle-axe, who shuns Indian food in favour of packets of chocolate
biscuits because, "I don't eat anything I can't pronounce."
Age hasn't dulled her rapier wit.
:: Swearing :: No sex :: No violence :: Rating: 9/10
To find local screenings for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, click
here
Wednesday, February 22 2012
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