Movie Review: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, an unlikely sequel, is like that stranger who you once met while waiting at a queue and became fast friends. You never thought you'd see them again, which is why I view this film in such an affectionate light.

Directed by John Madden (who also helmed the first film), the film pops back into the lives of those British senior citizens (reinventing their life in India) and the intrepid entrepreneur Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) whose vision brought them all together. The chaos of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has largely died down and replaced with the hustle bustle of an upcoming wedding. Sonny is to marry his fiancée Sunaina (Tina Desai) in a few days while negotiating with an American company to expand his business with more hotels.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has been running to full capacity with its patrons now working in India as well. There's no rest for these active retirees. Evelyn (Judi Dench) sources materials for a clothing startup, Douglas (Bill Nighy) gives misinformed tours of Jaipur landmarks, Madge (Celia Imrie) and Norman (Ronald Pickup) run the Viceroy Club for expats while Mrs Donnelly (Maggie Smith) handles the hotel operations. They've all found their purpose again.

In walk in two new guests, one, the meek Lavinia Beech (Tamsin Grieg) looking for a place for her mother and the other, a dashing American Guy Chambers (Richard Gere) who wants to start to write a book. Sonny is convinced the Chambers is the inspector sent by his potential American investor to scout out his hotel. This and other misunderstandings lead to him being distracted with his wedding plans. Of course, all these kerfuffles get sorted out on the way to a big fat Indian wedding celebration. But along the way, these retirees learn that reinvention takes a lot of work, while Sonny learns how to put others before himself. 

With the median age of the actors onscreen in the late 60s, most of the cast from the first film (minus Tom Wilkinson) is back. This time, veterans Dench and Smith get the most screen time as they adjust to their new leadership roles. Their scenes together are stellar and there's great warmth between these two great actresses and friends. The newbie of the group Richard Gere engages in a possible romance with Sonny's mother (Lillette Kapoor), while Douglas tries to initiate one with Evelyn. 

There are terrific one-liners (mostly from Maggie Smith) and the dusty locales of Jaipur and Mumbai are spruced up by Ben Smithard's gorgeous cinematography. My only gripe with the film was its use of Bollywood music which was stuck 10 years in the past. Not one current song could be heard. It could have been due to copyright issues but I wish the music was updated. No Indian sangeet or wedding would played outdated music, but that's just a minor niggle.

Overall, The Second Best Exotic Marigold is a wonderful follow-up to 2011's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The fact that the sequel too debuted at #1 at the box office in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the UK is proof that audiences don't just want to superhero franchises and dystopian thrillers onscreen. Screenwriter Ol Parker created a fitting environment in which the original characters could return. It may not be everyone's cup of tea and like the title suggests it will run second best to its predessor. But somehow, I can't help but regard the film with fondness. 

Directed by John Madden; Screenplay by Ol Parker; Cinematography by Ben Smithard; Edited by Victoria Boydell; Music by Thomas Newman

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New Trailer: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The surprising sequel that most people didn't see coming, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, has a brand new trailer.  Returning director John Madden and cast Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton from 2011's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel are joined by newcomers Richard Gere, David Straithairn and Tamsin Greig.  Taking place eight months after the first film, we check in with the guests and staff of the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and the Beautiful (great hotel name, by the way) and how they're doing.  It's seems they're all doing well now that Richard Gere has joined them. Of course, they are!  Though I had to sigh at that random shot of an elephant in the trailer.  Yes, we have elephants in India, Hollywood! Please get over it by now.  The film releases on March 6, 2015.

Movie Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Don't be fooled by the title but The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has little to do with the actual hotel and more to do with its British inhabitants who have come to seek a promise of a better life in the warmer and more hospitable climes of India.  

The film opens in Britain to introduce us to seven different senior citizens, all dealing with various life-changing crises in their lives and to whom The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel looks like the best option out.  There's Evelyn (Judi Dench) whose husband has just died and has never been on her own, a high court judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson) who once used to live in India, Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton) who invested all their money in their daughter's failed internet business, Madge (Celia Imrie) who's looking for her next wealthy husband, Norman (Donald Pickup) who doesn't want to be lonely anymore and finally Muriel (Maggie Smith) who looked after another family all her life and now has no one to look after her as she needs a hip replacement.  Together they all gather at the airport and onto to India where the journey begins with a bump in a road as their plane to Jaipur has been canceled.  

So instead they pile on a bus and head to the hotel where they discover the hotel is not as advertised.  Most of them adjust to the situation but Jean seems most upset and wants her money back.  No problem, says the manager of the soon-to-be-updated hotel, Sonny (Dev Patel), it'll be done in approximately three months.  Here he says my favorite line from the film, "Everything will be alright in the end...if it's not alright then its not the end."  He keeps repeating it in the movie to assure the characters and also himself.  Sonny has great ambitions for the hotel and his future but his plans are just not quite there yet.

The rest of the seniors may not be so sure of Sonny but they do they do their best and move forward.  Evelyn ventures forth and gets her first ever job, Norman and Madge hang out the posh club looking for companionship, Graham goes everyday to the public records office in search of an old friend while Jean can only stay at the hotel.  While cliched, the film shows us how this very drastic change of scenery brings that much needed push in their lives for many of the characters.  

The cast is absolutely stellar with several awards amongst them.  Director John Madden maneuvers them well; they all get their moment to shine.  It reminds you, that ensemble movies, if done well are fun to watch.  But the obvious star of the movie and the one we identify the most is Judi Dench.  She and director Madden previously made Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love for which she won her only Oscar.  She is absolutely charming here in her portrayal of a widow standing on her two feet again.  She and Maggie Smith (aka Dowager Countess Grantham and Professor McGonagall) have the most character growth in the film coming so far from where we first see them in the beginning.  It was quite touching to see it.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is surprising in how good it is.  The screenplay, written by Ol Parker, has its emotional moments coming at key places that actually pushes the story forward.  The dialogues are witty with lots of laugh out loud moments.  However, my one big gripe was Dev Patel's character Sonny who has quite voluble dialogues to mouth.  For a guy in his early 20s, he sounds like he's going on 40.  No other young character in the film sounds like him.  I fear he's going to always be typecast in roles like this unless he does something drastic.

Moving to India is not an easy experience.  Trust me, I know.  But once you're here, it feels you never left and the feeling you get when you eventually know your way around.  The film managed to capture the essence of how you finally find your way and somehow belong.  

PS-I saw many people coming to watch the movie with their parents, which I thought was kind of sweet.  I myself brought my mom to see the film.  

Directed by John Madden; Screenplay by Ol Parker; Based on the novel, These Foolish Things, by Deborah Moggach; Cinematography by Ben Davis; Edited by Chris Gill; Music by Thomas Newman

Additional cast: Tena Desae, Lillete Dubey, Sid Makkar, Diana Hardcastle and Bhuvnesh Shetty.

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Movie Review: The Last Airbender

Well, I was waiting to see this film despite all the negative buzz that surrounded the movie all throughout the making of and after the release of the film.  The Last Airbender was originally called Avatar: The Last Airbender and had to change its name to avoid confusion with James Cameron's Avatar.  Both films don't have much in common though M. Night Shyamalan must have surely wished for his film to achieve the same success as Avatar.  Sadly, this film was a flop and the next sequels are in doubt to be made even though Shyamalan says he has the script ready.  Good luck with that!  It's hard to see a filmmaker who enjoyed such early success with films like Wide Awake, The Sixth Sense and Signs struggling so much now.  He's got to find his groove back.

That being said, The Last Airbender is not a terrible film, it's just shoddy.  I'm glad that I didn't watch it in 3D which the critics and audiences alike ripped apart to shreds.  The story is intriguing, about a young boy Aang (Noah Ringer) who is the last of the Airbenders.  He has been trapped in a ball of ice for a hundred years during which the Fire Nation takes over and oppresses the Earth and Water Nations already having wiped out the Air Nation.  He  is also the Avatar, an incarnation of the previous Avatars that can bend all four elements, air, water, earth and fire.  He befriends Sokka (Jackson Rathborne) and Katara (Nicola Pietz) from the Water tribe and with their help begins a rebellion against the Fire Nation.  On his trail is Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), a banished prince from the Fire Nation, who believes that capturing the Avatar is the way back to his father's kingdom.   The movie is also a bit of journey for Aang who must come to terms with his destiny and learn to bend the elements to save and protect the people.

The weak point of the film is that it takes too much time for the film to get started and once you are finally involved in the story and want to see more, it suddenly ends.  I understand that Shyamalan planned this as a  trilogy but the ending leaves too many unresolved issues for me.  I do want to see more but I will probably have to catch up on the Avatar series that came on Nickelodeon.  The visual effects done by ILM were also sadly lacking and looked a bit weak.  The whole casting controversy didn't really affect my viewing of the film, sometimes it's just better to cast people who fit the role rather than merely look the role.  Maybe the hardcore fans feel a bit different, I'm not really sure.  So, while I had great expectations for this film, I'm ending up feeling with a lot of what could have been.  Until the meantime, I'm looking forward to M. Night Shyamalan's next film.  I'm not giving on up on him just yet.


Directed and Writen by M. Night Shyamalan; Cinematography by Andrew Lesnie; Music by James Newton Howard; Editing by Conrad Buff

Additional cast: Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, Cliff Curtis, Seychelle Gabriel, Damon Gupton, Summer Bishil

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