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At the Movies ‐ Chris Worthington The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Directed by John Madden Fans of the irst Exotic Marigold Hotel ilm may be surprised to ind out that it came out in 2011, how time goes by! The sequel inevitably covers some of the same territory but with varying degrees of success.
The ilm is mostly set in Jaipur with short excursion to Mumbai where Evelyn (Judi Dench) has got herself a job as a textile buyer. While it may be unfair to say that India is the real star of the ilm it is not far from the truth and some of the best humour in the ilm comes from the sub titles when the Indian characters are trading insults. The sets are excellent and the Indian actors have a dynamism and delivery that surpasses the veteran Brits. Dev Patel as Sonny Kapoor is outstanding as are Tina Desai as his iancé Sinaima and Shazaad Latif as Kushal, his devious rival in business and romance. Their rivalry comes to a climax in an exhilarating
Slumdog Millionaire style wedding dance. The ilm switches between the changes of fortune of the resident Brits and Sonny’s plans to marry and buy another hotel. Muriel (Maggie Smith) is again cast as Sonny’s mentor while Madge (Celia Imrie) and Norman (Ronald Pickup) are dealing with some fairly predictable dif iculties in their relationships. Norman also has to contend with believing that while drunk he has paid a one eyed tic tac driver to murder his wife. Meanwhile Douglas (Bill Nighy) is having a senior moment attempting to memorise a speech for the wedding. His solution is to have the speech relayed to him through an ear piece a by a young Indian friend armed with a lap top and wi i. Otherwise things are going along rather too well for the Brits and this does not make for great comedy drama. Richard Gere makes a surprise appearance as Guy Chambers, a hotel inspector working for the bank that Sonny has lined up to inance the new hotel. He arrives with false credentials as a writer and instantly falls in love with Sonny’s mother, a sharp tongued matriarch. This is most unlikely romance and the script of their dinner date does not even seem to convince the actors let alone the audience.
As in the irst Exotic Marigold ilm the Brits are coming out with jokes about the trials of old age and the short time that they have left to live. For the most part the wry humour in this does not pay off and it may been better if one of the Brits had actually died in the ilm. But it’s probably not a good idea to kill off national treasures.