REVIEW

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

— The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 86

Cast:

Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Maggie Smith, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie, Dev Patel, Tena Desae

Director:

John Madden

Rating:

PG-13 for sexual content and language

Running time:

124 minutes

Simply by casting some of the best British actors around, director John Madden finds a convenient way to get around a story that would otherwise seem played out. With two Dames reciting their lines, even the most tired of cliches become oddly fresh.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (based on Deborah Moggach’s novel These Foolish Things) follows a group of retired middle- to working-class Brits who move into a hotel in Jaipur, India, because retirement in the United Kingdom is too expensive.

A widow named Evelyn (Dame Judi Dench) leaves home because her late husband has given her a legacy of debt, and Douglas and Jean Ainslie (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton) are forced to move to the subcontinent because their daughter’s new business venture has drained their life savings.

For the bigoted Muriel (Dame Maggie Smith), India is the only place where she can get a replacement for her withered hip without having to wait six months. Nottrusting the people or the country, she packs a lot of British snacks.

Norman (Ronald Pickup) would like to woo women, although most of the available lasses are young enough to be his grandchildren, and Madge (Celia Imrie) hopes to have better luck finding a mate, who isn’t the randy Norman.

The only person in this group who isn’t staying at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and the Beautiful for lack of money is Graham (Tom Wilkinson), a high court judge. He’s also the only one who knows anything about India,and that’s because he’s carrying around a crushing secret.

Run by the enthusiastic but bumbling young entrepreneur Sonny (Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire), the hotel is a mess, but it gradually changes the lives of all who reside in it.

It doesn’t take much effort to guess that Muriel will lose her contemptible prejudices, but Smith makes the transformation a thing of astonishing beauty. Watching her bond with a fellow housecleanerwould seem phony with a lesser performer, especially since the monologue she delivers practically has “For Your Consideration” flashing on the bottom of the screen.

Similarly, when Dench and Wilkinson deliver long screeds, the two know how to do it without seeming as if they’ve also been practicing their award speeches.

The film is handsomely shot, but the landscape wouldn’t matter if the people occupying it weren’t enchanting in their own way.

MovieStyle, Pages 33 on 05/25/2012

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