The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ is not really my sort of film, it even has a terrible title, but here I am anyway... on a 2-for-1 ticket deal at Cineworld. It is based on the novel ‘These Foolish Things’ by Deborah Moggach, which is a much better title in my opinion.

We are introduced to the seven main characters, a motley crew, all of a certain age, who have all fallen for the so good it can’t be true advertisement for the ‘Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ encouraging them to outsource their retirement to Jaipur, India.

After an arduous journey, they finally arrive and can congratulate young entrepreneur Sonny (Dev Patel) on how nicely he Photoshop-ed the advert. He has an admirable ambition to run the hotel ‘for the elderly and the beautiful’, all he lacks is the money to do so.

The guests settle in, dust off the furniture, crush the cockroaches and tuck into their traditional British roast of... goat curry.

The cast is impressive. There’s Celia Imrie as the much married Madge who’s had enough of babysitting duties back home. Ronald Pickup plays the ageing womaniser Norman while Maggie Smith plays Muriel who hates all things foreign but accepts hip surgery in India. Tom Wilkinson plays Graham, a judge who walks away from his career to return to his boyhood India and to track down a former gay lover.

Naturally we have Judi Dench, she plays Evelyn who has been impoverished by the death of her debt ridden husband and Bill Nighy who is Douglas, one half of a couple, the Astley’s, who have been bankrupted by their daughter (we know their pain). Penelope Wilton play his miserable wife Jean. Jean hates India whereas it Douglas feel liberated. You hope that eventually he’ll be liberated from her too and so it proves. She is the only one who fails to let go the past and to embrace the future. Travel is of course supposed to broaden the mind, well some minds anyway.

As a backdrop, India itself steals the show. There’s also a nice side story as Sonny tries to woo his call centre sweetheart Sunaina (Tena Desae).

As a film it’s not too taxing, well not taxing at all really. As charming as it’s predictable, with many of the jokes as old as the cast. It’s a fluffy dog story without the fluffy dog. Come to think of it, why isn’t there a dog? Fluffy or otherwise. Why didn’t one of the characters have a four legged friend? Major oversight.

It’s not a word I'd ever use to describe a film but my partner described the film as ‘lovely’. So there you go. Lovely. Apparently.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

The film opens with tasteful shots of numerous couples romantically entwined while in the background Frank Sinatra is singing 'As Time Goes By'. Then we cut to Wilson (Scoot McNairy) who quickly lowers the tone. Wilson is new to Los Angeles, recently split from a long-term girlfriend, fed up, and lonely. We see him using Photoshop to paste his flat mate's girlfriend's head onto the photo of a naked female body. He is pleased with the erotic nature of the resulting photo, until his flat mate Jacob (Brian McGuire) walks in and catches him with his pants down. Oh dear, it's so embarrassing when that happens.

Unable to believe what he is seeing, Jacob calls his girlfriend over to ask her if that really is her on the computer screen. By now Wilson is hiding in the bathroom.

It's New Year's Eve and Jacob decides it's best if Wilson gets a life. So he persuades him to post a personal ad on Craig's List.

The ad 'Misanthrope seeks misanthrope' gets a response from the strong-willed but neurotic Vivian (Sara Simmonds), who is holding openly cut-throat interviews to try and find the 'right guy' to be with at the stroke of midnight. Despite having reservations about Wilson, he seems the best option and the two of them 'hang out' around Los Angeles. Two lonesome souls who don't wish to spend New Year's Eve without having someone to kiss at midnight.



Vivian admits she had to look up what a misanthrope was. As did I! A misanthrope does not trust other human beings; they possibly do not even like them. Initially Vivian seems to fit this description to a 'T' but as their relationship develops over the evening, our first impressions of the two of them change. Vivian turns out to be more human than she would have us believe. Deep down perhaps she's a philanthropic person. Wilson too grows before our eyes to be more substantial and interesting than we first thought.

In order to get to know each other better they both agree to make a confession to each other. Wilson, for reasons only he can fathom, confesses to the Photoshop incident. This unsurprisingly doesn't go down well and after that revelation, the date takes some rescuing. Things get worse when Vivian discovers condoms in his pocket. She'd already made it crystal clear they'd be none of that sort of entertainment this evening and certainly not something requiring the five, which were forced upon him by Jacob.

Wilson empties his bank account and wins her round with a meal. We find out that Vivian's dumped her long-term boyfriend, although she doesn't really seem to have told him yet, after finding out he was sleeping with someone else. When she finally answers the phone to her ex, she tells him the news and he threatens to torch all her belongings and do worse to Wilson. So Wilson helps her out in a mission to rescue her belongings from their apartment.



They eventually turn up at Jacob's New Years Eve party where he is about to propose to his girlfriend, Min (Kathleen Luong). Min though, rather than be annoyed by the Photoshop incident, seems flattered by it and comes on to Wilson. God, girls are weird. Shocked by this, Wilson immediately leaves and takes Vivian with him. Even after that incident, Min still accepts Jacob's offer of marriage.

Wilson and Vivian end up where they were always destined to, in bed together, where Vivian's confession comes, that she's pregnant by her ex.



In the morning, she waves goodbye to him from a taxi and is seemingly gone for ever and Wilson is back more or less, where he started but with more of a mess as regards his flatmates. The upside is possibly his own ex, who's given him a call, and perhaps could be up for reconciliation.

A good film with definite shades of 'Before Sunset'. I liked it but it's the sort of film L and I go for. A cheap fun film with lots of rough edges. Just like life should be.