Film Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Veteraned Brits go abroad, adventure and self-discover

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the destination for a group of British retirees who leave their ordered, gray and wet England to the sweaty hotbed of India to find something of value. It’s formulaic and charmingly prophetic, and like most British comedies, boasts a strong ensemble cast that often papers the film’s clichéd cracks.

Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love), we follow the lives of seven Brits, each looking to outsource their retirement for different reasons.  It’s not a consensus bucket list, more of a personal growing opportunity and something to look upon as a cultural experience that’s learned, not achieved, which is still possible for these elderly.Taken from Deborah Moggach’s book These Foolish Things, the film was adapted and penned by Ol Parker . He balances the streets of Jaipur between the peachiness of Eat Pray Love and the hostile malevolence of Slumdog Millionaire.

The travelers group together after numerous plane rides, bus trips and taxi excursions as they make their way to the hotel. Upon arrival, they quickly realize the establishment is not the picture in the brochure that inspired them. At first, the hotel exaggerates its second qualifier, completely strange and anything but the best, and so the Brits must learn to cope with door-less rooms and their feathered inhabitants.

We are introduced to Evelyn (Judi Dench) first, the story’s part-time narrator who brings an epistolary nature into the story. She recently lost her husband and now struggles to uphold the responsibilities that were foreign to her. She writes in her blog which is subsequently spoken aloud to us. It contains the same inquisitive nature, but far less ominous tone than her diary exposits in Notes on a Scandal. A frustrating phone-call at home with an out-of-country operator prompts a vocation for her in India when she becomes a teacher for the local telemarketing operations center.

A familiar face in Notes is also one of her travel companions, Douglas (Bill Nighy) along with his homesick wife Jean (Penelope Wilton). They lost a majority of their money in their daughter’s supposed fail-safe investment. Their arrival in India is an exciting change of pace for Douglas, but Jean finds its abnormalities far beyond her comfort and something that sparks an inevitable problem.

Muriel (Maggie Smith) is maybe the most bitter of the bunch, discriminatory from her opening dialogue. She learns that her replacement hip can be performed in Jaipur for a much cheaper cost and shorter wait. An ex-servant and housekeeper, her obdurate nature begins to weaken after teaching a few handy skills to another maid at the hotel. They slowly bond and Muriel, wheeling around in her temporary chair, begins to break from her shell.

Madge (Celia Imrie and Norman (Ronald Pickup) still have some youthful spry in their step, two singles on the lookout for exclusive

Judi Dench in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

love. Madge fancies herself up daily and crashes high-end British parties, more self-conscious than bold in her tries at romance. Norman however learns to play his old, scruffy self to his advantage and lands a woman equally spontaneous.

Madden captures these fleeting souls and contrasts them against the vibrant, youthful exuberance of India’s bubbling younger generation. He parallels this with careful attention, like in last year’s The Debt (which also starred Tom Wilkinson), toggling between older and younger versions of Mossad agents and their fight against the evils of both humanity and time. Wilkinson continues this role, struggling with a bad heart that carries with it forty years of shame. He plays Graham who is rather secretive about his journey to India. He takes solitary walks each day out and about in the city, searching for an old acquaintance with a mysterious history. Wilkinson conveys such wisdom in the way he talks and carries himself, often played out through cricket tips with local youngsters, hinting at the binding cultural ties that harken back to Britain’s 19^th century imperialism.

Hopeless romantic and hotel owner Sonny (Dev Patel) fulfills the kindred spirit role he played in Slumdog Millionaire, this time pining for another lover- blockaded by her status and his mother’s ill content. His architectural ambition is ill-met with his lack of financial means but it’s safe to say it boasts the cleaner living options in the neighborhood. His contentious romance is a debate that feels antiquated in the modern world, and it takes some self-reflection and a little help to nudge his mother to align with his visions.

Each character attains something, not through themselves but by seeing themselves in others. These learning curves are somewhat predictable, but nonetheless fulfilling, and while the film’s subtle hints at change and growth are evident, Evelyn reaffirms them with her dialogue. This is fine, but confines the audience much more. I find Dench’s expressions and Nighy’s perplexing looks much more engaging when left unspoken about. They each carry the film and suggest a reverence for their new quarters despite its uncouth appearance and sometimes chaotic, populous roads, further balancing the more predictable parts of the comedic genre.

Dev Patel throws away an old Indian proverb in his desperate attempt to keep his residents. “In the end everything will be all right. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.” The message is equal parts gimmicky, equal parts reality. Sometimes it’s best if we hear it again.

3/5

Film Review: The Avengers

Round up the crew, we’ve got war!

We were teased, previewed, given hints, and shown secrets, and now finally, The Avengers makes it heavily anticipated arrival. Such is the culture of the comic book era we are still apparently thriving in, and a microcosm of the transforming age of the movie trailer. Every few months a new preview is leaked on the internet, going viral within a matter of minutes; it’s almost an event in itself (Fans are treated to two more sneaks, The Amazing Spiderman and The Dark Knight Rises).

This combination of superhero narratives is the final culmination of several two-hour “trailers” that has been hinting at the film’s inception ever since Iron Man in 2008. Other loose ends have included The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man 2. It’s like Disney knew something when they acquired Marvel Studios under their exceedingly bloated brand, foreseeing a devoted fan base to capitalize on. In fact their corporate structure lines up well with most of these superheroes’ values, defending capitalist American idealism from the “evil” foreign nations and their totalitarian regimes. Yes, it seems fitting that Disney is in charge of this franchise, bankrolling its way with antiquated fears while hypocritically demanding praise (the same kind it speaks ill of) when its characters swoop in to save the day.

Of course, in the Joss Whedon directed tag-team action flick, there is much more than just swooping going on. However, most of the fight does take place in the air, a now desensitizing collaboration of alien robotic machinery and explosions, made infamous in the infrastructure-wrecking Transformers series. Most of the film is fighting, which is something to be thrilled about, but be equally irritated by. Because of its predecessors, The Avengers benefits by not having to relay origins and waste the first hour by dragging back-stories. It fills its empty space though with daredevil antics that minutely overshadow its sometimes more interesting conversations and comical quips.

To begin the often-quoted “war,” the film starts with the impending doom headed for the world. Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) adopted brother, is an Asgardian prince dubbed in antler helmet and gold scepter, looking for his ascension to the throne. He is after the tesseract, the bright blue cube of self-sustaining energy in order to provide a portal from his world to earth. His mission is to free people from freedom, and subsequently gain total power over humankind. He unexpectedly infiltrates a military base, brainwashes a few key human assets, and takes off with the cube.

In charge of the pursuit is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the eye-patched liaison between world-government and secret Avenger squadron. His slow recruitment to assail the team is helped by Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a Russian spy who dons the sultry leather black suit. Along with other agents comes the big green man, though when he’s not angry isBruce Banner, played by a mellower Mark Ruffalo as well as Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), the arrow slinging marksman summoned back from a temporary mind control.

They all board an undercover mammoth aircraft, accompanied by the previously cryogenically frozen Captain America (Chris Evans), now burst into the 21^st century star struck, but maybe not enough after experiencing 60 years of technological and cultural change. Robert Downey Jr. also makes his return as Tony Stark, the self-absorbed, tech-savvy Iron Man. He and the Captain share a common goal but differ on their methods, which results in a lot of name-calling and jokes, aimed mostly at the Roarin’ 20s-born patriot. They mimic the consistent levity in Ocean’s Eleven provided by the petty dweebs Casey Affleck and Scott Caan.

Stark provides much of the interesting commentary, mostly because he doesn’t take his job too seriously until he has to. He has the

Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson in The Avengers

personality (including some finely tuned moments with his wife, played by Gwyneth Paltrow), which is a nice contrast to more opaque personas, namely the relationship between Widow and Hawkeye who rarely smile or show anything at all. They must all, in typical comic fashion, come together despite their differences and work in unison.

Like in The Magnificent Seven, the type-A personalities must learn to coincide to work for the greater good. Manhattan’s skyline is subject to the ominous portal, and like fighting off bandits from a Mexican pueblo, Thor and Iron Man take on Yul Brynner’s and Steve McQueen’s perilous leadership roles, while letting Hulk shock and awe with his temporal fits of rage-filled, rag-doll smashes.

Hiddleston, who looks like a combination of Marilyn Manson and Michael Fassbender, continues to display Loki’s irrational confidence, which is bound in equal parts fear. Unlike Sam Raimi’s disastrous Spiderman 3, Whedon at least finds a nice flow of action between his superheroes, economically sharing each Avenger’s spotlight and simultaneous moments of teamwork. There’s no real edginess or pain, just chipped egos that promote the constant high speed mentality on which the film must flourish.

There was a solid amount of cheering at my screening throughout the picture, but it felt more like applauses of affirmation, exaggerated sighs of expectation and self-assurance. In this genre, this feeling is understandable and can be quite entertaining, and Whedon certainly makes it so. But I kept feeling that the Dark Knight Rises trailer before garnered more of a chilling buzz, an eager sense of highly-anticipated comic unpredictability. Staying after the initial credits then helped me realize that we keep getting duped and that the The Avengers is really  just another long trailer. I’ll buy in this time.

3.5/5