The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel follows a group of old age pensioners as they give up their previous lives in the UK and go to India to stay in a hotel build entirely for the elderly, run by a gentleman named Sonny (DevPatel). I dragged a few of my reluctant friends along to watch this with meand, like them, you may be wondering why you would want to go and watch the geographical displacement of seniors for two hours. Well, the unsuspecting charm and intelligence of this film will win you over, just like it did with those sceptical friends of mine.
The biggest strength of the film here lays entirely in its fantastic writing. The dialogue is sharp and the wit is surprisingly cutting.The humour is diverse and dextrous; not entirely playing to a set of safe established gags such as crude sexual innuendos or the inability of your grandmother to work a computer, but rather deciding to be a bit more intellectual and dry. The decision to focus the story primarily on the pensioners coming to stay in the hotel rather than the manager and his story arc was a challenging yet immensely rewarding decision. It’s very impressive that the writer managed to flesh out each character sufficiently and give them enough development that by the end of the film no individual feels particularly overlooked or unfulfilled. What’s most interesting is, sure some stories have a little more emphasis or background to them than others, but there’s not one main protagonist that the film focuses on – they all stand on a level pegging.This doesn’t detract from the film at all; it actually strengthens it becauseof the writing. Therefore, credit where credit’s due to the screenplay writer Parker for doing an admirable job.
The cast of the film were excellent but this is no surprise when you have the likes of Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith gracing the credits. The chemistry between the residents of the hotel was effortless and I thoroughly enjoyed every actor’s performance; not a single weak link among them. The strenuous relationship between Douglas (Bill Nighy)and Jean (Penelope Wilton) was excellent and their characters heavily contrasted eachother. Ronald Pickup provided excellent comic relief as aging wannabe-lothario Norman, who is vying desperately to cling to his youth bychasing women. The standout performances here, however, must go to Judi Dench as the understated but crowd favourite Evelyn (Judie Dench) who goes to India after the death of her husband and Maggie Smith as Muriel who plays a potentially controversial character impeccably.
A nice touch in the film was some of the non-conservative themes tackled which took it away from being a bit of a middle-of-the-road monotonous conventional affair. Surprisingly, questions about sexuality, the supposed sanctity of marriage, race and social background are explicitly discussed throughout the film which made it feel fresh and invigorating. Despite this, for the most part the plot of the film is quite foreseeable but it doesn’t feel like the plot is the main concern here. Neither is cinematography, there’s not an awful lot to say about the directing. The location really lends itself to how beautiful some scenes are, but John Madden really does not concern himself with aesthetics, mainly focusing in on the interaction between characters. Exploring identity and relationships through the characters are and so the writing and characters are what change this film from being tolerable to thoroughly engaging.
In summary, the BEMH is a quaint and charming comedy-drama which avoids the trappings of sentimental films with witty dialogue and strong character development. It still is largely predictable, but this is forgivable because of how downright lovely it is. The real strength in this film lies inthe fact that I’m far from the films target audience, but I really think it deserves a 4/5 as it does its job perfectly. Definitely go see it if you are in need of a pick me up or a restoration of faith in the world.