In 2012, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel confounded expectations by becoming something of a surprise hit: a soft-hearted, defiantly benign comedy which sent a squadron of British retirees over to India to take advantage of the discounts outsourcing can provide (or “imperialism”, as it used to be called). It’s not the sort of film that would usually get a sequel, but one has duly arrived, with a slightly reshuffled pack of old-gold stage and screen veterans, plus the addition of an overseas transfer: Richard Gere, crinkly of eye and wafty of hair, as exotic a hothouse bloom himself in this type of low-maintenance British cinema.
In seeking to exactly replicate the mood of its predecessor, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel executes the time-honoured practice of giving the punters exactly what they want. Which is to say, a notional claim to contrast the pinched, gloomy prospect of a decline and death in wintry, cold-hearted Britain with the possibly achievable golden-years-in-late-summer India, where the latter’s irrepressible joie de vivre and bustling go-getter confidence is a marker of a societal respect for the older generation. Or something along those lines.
Judi Dench and Bill Nighy are arguably the central figures this time, their romance inching along as each obstacle is laboriously hacked away. Dev Patel is hotel manager Sonny, attempting to branch out with another Marigold retirement hotel (in conjunction with Maggie Smith, as comedy racist Muriel) while organising his wedding to Sunaina (Tina Desai). Gere shows up as a mysterious American visitor who may or may not be an inspector from the international hotel chain with whom Sonny and Muriel are trying to close a deal.
Of course, as Woody Allen has established to considerable financial advantage, a tourists’-eye view is no impediment to a plausible viewing experience, if a film is expertly made, and Marigold Hotel 1 and 2 both operate smoothly enough. Both films also have a sharp eye to its silver-surfer audience, offering one or two thoughts about older-generation empowerment that rise above the standard-issue rapping-granny shtick that films so obviously aimed at this demographic tend to indulge in. Its claim to say much about India is much more questionable: a couple of trips to a market, a nose around a dye factory and rubbernecking at a by-now-traditional Indian wedding don’t exactly lift the lid on the place. In any case, so limited are the Marigold Hotel’s residents’ interactions with the outside world that the film may as well be set in Bexhill.
This is undemanding, misty-eyed stuff; carried through by its seasoned, thoroughbred performers. It’s hard to be harsh on a film so essentially good-natured, though collective patience may snap if a Third Best Exotic Marigold Hotel hobbles into view. But let’s just remember the good times.
