Talented cast raises ‘Marigold Hotel’ rating
Who among us hasn’t been hoodwinked by a hotel’s promise of an ocean view?
The stakes are far greater, however, when British pensioners are lured to India’s Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful offering elegant living at reasonable rates. Instead, they find dusty rooms with furniture draped in sheets, birds flying around inside, missing doors and spotty water, electrical and phone service.
“Let’s not concern ourselves with details,” hotel manager Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), assures his guests. The fact it looks little like the promotional photos is just part of the adjustment for newcomers in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” opening today at Amc-loews at the Waterfront and Manor in Squirrel Hill.
One of the Brits, Graham (Tom Wilkinson), lived in India as a young man but hasn’t been back in 40 years. He abruptly retires as a High Court judge and ends up among a ragtag band of strangers — some married, some widowed or divorced, some ill-tempered and prejudiced, some terrified, some relishing a fluttering of freedom.
Chief among them are Evelyn (Judi Dench), a widow who had to sell her flat to pay her husband’s hidden debts; Muriel (Maggie Smith), a hip replacement patient who can get the surgery immediately in India or wait six months at home; Douglas and Jean (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton), a married couple who lent their nest egg to their daughter; Madge (Celia Imrie), a divorcee who’s tired of playing grandma the baby sitter; and Norman (Ronald Pickup), a self-styled romeo.
Their attitudes range from Graham’s reassurance to Evelyn, “It’s going to be extraordi-
nary,” to Muriel’s determination to hate everything and perhaps everyone. “If I can’t pronounce it, I don’t want to eat it,” she decrees.
And this is before they get to the hotel where they learn Sonny, the youthful and optimistic manager, presented his guests with a vision of the future, not a snapshot of the present. “In India, we have a saying. Everything will be all right in the end. So if it is not all right, it is not yet the end.”
Before the end comes, one revelation will be shared, characters will either embrace or continue to rigidly fear their surroundings, and their ranks will be depleted in ways expected and unexpected.
You can see some of the developments coming in the gentle comedy directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”) and written by Ol Parker based on the Deborah Moggach novel originally published as “These Foolish Things.”
Seven Brits may be one or two too many, since every character demands some screen time, as do Sonny and his girlfriend.
The movie’s saving grace is its rich talent, particularly Dame Judi, Dame Maggie, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Nighy, the acting equivalent of saffron, cardamom or edible gold leaf. It doesn’t take much for them to spice a scene with emotion, while the young “Slumdog Millionaire” star and others salt in humor.
Outsourcing their retirement to India, with its heat, noise, teeming crowds, social and economic divides along with its modern call centers filled with young women elders don’t consider suitable marriage material, allows a challenge that relocating to another nation would not.
Movies such as this allow you to walk a movie mile in another’s slippers. Would you embrace what Evelyn calls the assault on the senses, relish the chance at reinvention and a third act of life, or desperately scheme to return home?
No matter what, the sight of a half-dozen actors — all born between 1934 and 1952 — sitting in a row at an airport like some sort of aging Avengers is a sight for sorely neglected older (and some younger) eyes.
Movie editor Barbara Vancheri: bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632. Read her blog: www.post-gazette.com/ madaboutmovies.