Family Affairs and other matters

I went with two girlfriends yesterday to see film “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and whilst they were more impressed than I was, overall I felt it was a very enjoyable film. My view was that with such a stellar cast it shouldn’t have been quite so average. There is a lot to love about but as a comedy drama I felt that lots of the funny bits could have been funnier – some of the humour was very lame. Maggie Smith was brilliant at playing a cantankerous old racist and Judy Dench managed to look as gorgeous and serene as ever under difficult circumstances. Bill Nighy should have been funnier although I guess he was constricted by his character. However, in my opinion the only really moving bit involved the part played by Tom Wilkinson. Some of the other scenes/relationships puzzled me a little. Especially Dev Patel who over-egged the stereotypical Indian proprietor of the rundown hotel “for the elderly and beautiful” with his plans to “outsource old age”.

The story is basically about a random group of oldies who all end up travelling out to India together to stay in a rundown hotel – most (but not all – without giving too much away) of them are having to retire out there owing to a lack of funds to sustain them in the UK. The scenes in Jaipur are spectacular and as Judi Dench says “is there anywhere else in the world that is such an assault on our senses – a riot of noise, colour, heat and crowds”.

There are some poignant moments and some words of wisdom – such as when Maggie Smith points out that when life isn’t somehow going along as expected it’s the bits that happen instead that are usually the good bits or when it is pointed out at the end that “the only real failure is the failure to try” and all we can do is to get up in the morning and do our best. Nothing else matters. I did however find Celia Imrie’s role as a desperate singleton in search of a wealthy man quite depressing.

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing”. We should all learn to celebrate the changes that come with getting older and finally the wonderful message throughout the film as all the guests find some sort of equilibrium is that “everything will be all right in the end and, trust me, if it’s not all right, then it’s not the end”.