Every year or two, a film comes around that is grandparent-safe, either because the cast's average age is about the same as your typical grandparent, or because the subject matter is so placid that there's no risk of offending the elderly. I suppose director John Madden's (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN, PROOF, THE DEBT) latest THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (based on the novel by Deborah Moggach) fits the bill for bubbies around the world, if you define "safe" as something with no sharp edges or anything to substantially challenge those watching.
The problems with MARIGOLD HOTEL are simple, show up early, and rarely leave the screen. Most of the film's characters are dreadfully boring, and even the ones that eventually grow a personality in their winter years do so in a way that feel contrived, bordering on forced. The film involves a young Indian hotel manager (Dev Patel, the lead in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) of a somewhat broken-down establishment who advertises the the hotel as a place where older clientele can relax, and several British gray-hairs decide to take an extended vacation at the hotel, including those played by Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Tom Wilkinson, and the unstoppable Maggie Smith.
Some of the residents embrace the shortcomings of the hotel and the surrounding culture, while others flat out refuse to leave the compound. The film walks us through the trials and tribulations of each of the visitors--the lonely widow (Dench), the miserable married couple (Nighy and Wilton), the hateful spinster (Smith), and the aging gay man (Wilkinson) searching for his first love during his teen years. Some of what happens is sweet, funny, heartbreaking, and above all else, as predictable as 12:31pm following 12:30pm.
Nothing reduces a movie into its dullest parts faster than predictability. The only thing worse is being pointless, and there's a subplot involving Patel, his girlfriend, and his disapproving mother that seems to be there for no other reason than to include some Indian actors in a tale about, you know, India. So what MARIGOLD HOTEL ends up feeling like is an imitation of life. Not every movie has to have twist endings, life-altering experiences that set the character down a new path or a post-credits special scene; I get that. But Madden doesn't give us anything to actually fill us with a sense of India's transcendent qualities, and I wanted some of what these old guys were having.
Probably doing the best work in the film are Dench and Nighy, but put those two in just about any movie and that would probably be the case. Using very different techniques and possessing distinct strengths, Dench and Nighy have found ways to command the screen at all times--Dench with her powerful voice and piercing stare; Nighy with his charming uncertainty followed immediately by a nervous certainty about the direction his life needs to take.
Words like "love" and "life" and observations about how long its taken these characters so long to find pure versions of either will certainly make their way into most critical reviews of this film. And if you see that in other reviews, you'll know which critics are lazy. MARIGOLD HOTEL is about as exciting as wall paper, and you'll learn as much about restarting your life as you might from a book of stamps, and that's assuming you're able to stay awake during this excessively boring travelogue of a film. Only see this after a good night's sleep.
