The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Come and spend your Autumn years in an Indian Palace.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the story of a small group of British retirees who answer the call. An eclectic band of strangers who decide to “outsource” their later years to a less expensive and seemingly exotic India. Visions of a life of leisure, they arrive to find the palace a shell of its former self, obviously the brochure pictures from an earlier time.

Marigold Hotelhas an interesting storyline but the coup de grais is the ensemble of Emmy and Golden Globe award winning actors and actresses. I could sprinkle them into this review but I prefer to divulge them all at once. Tom Wilkinson is Graham Dashwood, a recently retired judge with a secret. Judi Dench, the Grand Dame, is Evelyn Greenslade, a widow who has never had a job but whose previously successful husband died leaving her penniless and in debt. Maggie Smith is Muriel Donnely, a woman who spent her whole life “in service” to a family who has terminated her for a younger woman. Bill Nighy plays Douglas Ainslee, a man who has tolerated a shrew of a woman his whole married life and is now stuck with her in a foreign country because their daughter borrowed their retirement money for a new business and can’t pay it back. Madge Hardcastle, a mature single woman who is looking for a place she can still afford to live the life she so desperately clings to is played by Celia Imrie. Wow! Is that an amazing cast or what?

There is also a beautifully talented Indian cast led by Dev Patel who plays Sonny Kapoor, the endearing but inexperienced manager of the Marigold whose brothers are all successful when he has yet to find his place in life. The hotel was his dead father’s dream so he has taken it as his own. He wants to build a place so wonderful that the residents would refuse to die! When asked by Madge if everything was going to be alright, Sonny answers, “Everything will be all right in the end, so if it’s not alright, it is not yet the end”.

I truly enjoyed this film that expertly intertwines six vastly different people with six diverse stories. They are all forever transformed by the shared experience of a new environment, less luxurious than promised but majestically teeming with life and love. They find a place where they can begin again when they dare to let go of their pasts.

The message of not allowing your age to define you is front and center. Getting out of our comfort zones is less and less appealing as we grow older yet these new friends find a vibrant life waiting in a place and time they didn’t expect.

Welcome to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful. The talent is amazing. The scenery is spectacular (better than Eat, Pray Love in my opinion). The story is heartwarming, hope-giving and real. What’s not to like? Rent it or buy it (I plan to watch it again) but enjoy it with someone you can chat with about it afterwards. As always, I love your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com.