Entertainment / Review: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Review: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Entertainment Mar 05, 2015

by Matthew Currie

A Sequel That's Undercooked And Overly Familiar, But Still Worth The Trip

Print your tickets, check your luggage and pop a few Gravol to take the edge off that intercontinental flight, because four years after The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel turned into a sleeper hit for Fox Searchlight, the studio, along with director John Madden and nearly all of his ridiculously talented ensemble of British character actors, have booked themselves a return visit.

We venture once more into the sleepily enchanting Indian lodging for the “elderly and beautiful” to find not much has changed for the British ex-pats who were charmed into calling the Marigold their permanent home back in the first film.

Would-be lovebirds Evelyn (Judi Dench) and Douglas (Bill Nighy) are still tentatively flirting with the idea of a romance but can’t seem to commit, as the former finds unexpected success with a local fabrics business and the latter passes the time as a tour guide (being fed all of his lines through an earpiece by a rambunctious boy with a laptop).

On the other end of the romantic spectrum, Norman (Ronald Pickup) and Carol (Celia Imrie) struggle to stay monogamous now that they’re both unexpectedly inundated with willing and (more or less) able partners, while Marigold manager Sonny (Dev Patel) must juggle his impending marriage to Sunaina (Tina Desai) while also working with Muriel (a crotchety-as-ever Maggie Smith) to secure financing from America to expand his hotel empire with a second location. That’s where the cast’s high-profile new arrival, Richard Gere, comes in, playing a mystery guest whom Sonny is convinced is there to evaluate the Marigold for his American investors (but who may, in fact, just be a lonely guy on vacation).

You don’t walk into a movie called The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel expecting originality. Such a title wouldn’t be out of place in a Funny or Die video poking fun at unnecessary sequels, and indeed, the film itself doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

The (first) Best Exotic Marigold Hotel relied heavily on the novelty of its concept and the considerable charm of its ridiculously overqualified cast — a cast that director Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker were apparently so confident in that they barely even bothered to build a movie around them this time out.

The "plot” is more accurately described as a loose assemblage of low-stakes, meandering storylines that tend to peter out rather than pay off. The gags aren’t particularly clever or original. And the heartfelt monologues about embracing life, age be damned, feel rehashed — since we’ve essentially already seen this exact same movie, done better, back in 2011.

And yet, despite all this, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is tough to dislike. And, all due respect to director Madden’s agreeably breezy direction, the thanks goes to the embarrassment of acting riches populating his cast.

In particular, Patel and Smith still make for a winning odd couple, and they, along with Dench et al., inject such warmth and pathos and whatever else is required into every undercooked moment in the script that it seldom matters that none of this is really going anywhere. What’s more, who needs cleverly crafted jokes when, one imagines, even watching the effortlessly charismatic and amusingly befuddled Bill Nighy read the names out of a phone book would prove a uniquely delightful experience?

They’ve got poorer material to work with this time, but the actors are all in fine form and still make for delightful company (although, two full hours is really too much to do nothing but sit and visit, even with such pleasant companions).

In the end, this return visit to the Marigold is like your second trip to any enchanting vacation spot. The novelty has worn off, but the charm, for the most part, remains.

^{_{Images Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures}}

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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Review: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

by Matthew Currie

A Sequel That's Undercooked And Overly Familiar, But Still Worth The Trip

Matthew Currie

COMMENTS

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