The Best Exotic Merigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a 2012 British comedy-drama, about the elderly, the ones we leave be, who we all feel has lived life but in which this film it shows us we can live life to it's fullest even till the day we die. 

This Film gets: 9 Lee's

Director: John Madden 

Running time: 124 minutes

Screenplay: Ol Parker

Cast: Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Maggie Smith, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie

As quoted from the film by Sonny Kapoor(Dev Patel), the mad hotel owner/manager and hilarious sidekick to everyone, “In India, we have a saying; everything will be all right in the end. So if it is not all right, it is not yet the end.” And boy does this stick with you throughout the film and even afterwards, it resounds in your head to make you think about life, love, and the idea or ideal we have about happiness - true and honest happiness.

The film ventures into areas unexplored, or rather explored fully.  We follow a group of 7 lower- /middle- and upper class British elderly citizens who all need to- have to- or want to go to India. You see the splendour of a country we all fear to be a place where you will go and shall not return, well… depending on which area you are planning on going too.  This film pushes the limits and sets a new bar for dramatic comedies all round as the characters of 65+ fall in love - again, find the truth, have a change of heart, regain confidence and just plain doesn’t care what people think about them and what or why they are doing this.  I think I speak for everyone when I say that I would love to have this movie play out in my own life.  To experience all the thrills, drama and suspense life has thrown at us thus far, all over again on your last few days on earth. Brilliant, sign me up now!

With a cast as powerful and brilliant as this the movie has no choice but to overwhelm you with the lust for life. The director, John Madden, takes you out of your comfort zone and places you in the wondrous and spectacular setting of India which is vibrant with colours and culture, depicting the perfect placement for a story of this magnitude, everything about this film is absolutely perfect, the choice of cinematography the lighting, costume, location, design, scripting, everything is perfectly chosen to fit and mesh into each other like the seasons of a year flowing gradually from one to the next.  Of course the characters surprize you from time to time with what they say and you stop for a moment to think about it and then to ask yourself “would my grandmother/father say that?”, there is a beautiful bit where Madge(Celia Imrie) asks “You're not worried about the danger of having sex at your age?” and the response to this will forever be printed in my head and I will quote this till the day I die, Norman(Ronald Pickup) says “If she dies, she dies.” I have to buy the dvd just for that line. The script writing on this apart from all the research that was put in, is absolutely phenomenal, kudus to  Ol Parker who transforms this story from just another old age story into this adventure of finding peace.

When all is said and done I think that tackling a story like this must’ve been hard, some momentous task to find the perfect cast and crew to partake in a risk like this, I mean if you look at films these days its more guts and gore than anything else really and here comes this innocent story and blasts us away.  The making of this film I think if summed up in my last quote by Evelyn Greenslade(Judi Dench) “Definition of 'Dunk'; Means lowering the biscuit into the tea and letting it soak in there trying to calculate the exact moment before the biscuit dissolves, when you whip it up into your mouth and enjoy the blissful union of biscuits and tea combined. It's more relaxing than it sounds.”

 And this film is exactly why we love watching movies and that’s why they love making them.