The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Great Fun
"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is great feel good film. I found it to be quite captivating and am very glad that I made the effort to see it. I recommend it to others.

In brief, the film revolves around the coming together of seven elderly and somewhat impecunious Britons who, of their own volition, and quite separately, decide to retire to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in Jaipur. They discovered the place on the internet and, as we all should know, the internet can sometimes be a bit misleading. Indeed, this is the case here. The hotel had been billed as a marvelous palace when, in fact, it was tired and chaotic.

The seven visitors form the key members of the cast and are led by Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy. Some can adjust to the way of life in India while others fail completely. Along the way, we are given a peek into daily life in India in all its colour and noise.

The movie is often funny but always enthralling. I will say no...

A thoroughly delightful film.
John Madden's "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" may not be a great film, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable one that will keep you entertained from beginning to end. It isn't challenging in the slightest, which has caused many critics to downgrade it, or damn it with faint praise. All I know is that the audience in the packed theater where I saw the film applauded at the end, and I applauded with them.

By now everyone knows the story of "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." A group of English retirees decides for various reasons (mostly financial) to move to India. The retirement hotel they choose sounds glorious from the brochure, but turns out to be a rundown, if once-grand, hulk run by a young Indian with much more enthusiasm than skill. A lot of comedy ensues, and a little conflict and tragedy; attitudes are changed, old bonds broken, and new bonds forged.

The ensemble cast of British character actors ranges among the super-famous (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith), the...

Couldn't be better!
I saw TBEMH at a theater in a community well-known for its attractiveness to retirees. Most of the audience seemed to be over sixty. I am in my 70s. The reactions I heard were all about relating to the characters and the dialogue. Most of the dialogue was more original than Maggie Smith's comment about green bananas, which I've heard dozens of times before. Having visited northeastern India and felt its overwhelming splendor and squalor, I was reminded of much of what I saw there. India itself seemed to be one of the characters, and was ably supported by both young and old Indian characters but also stood on its own with the visuals and the cacophony. The Hindu funeral made me wish I could have one too when my time comes. This is a movie I will see again and again just for the pleasure of seeing people and places that make me feel that it's really OK to be 70 and "out there."

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