Film: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Venue: Curzon Cinema, Langney Road, Eastbourne BN21 3EU
Telephone: 01323 731441

After a 10 week run at the Eastbourne Curzon, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is poised for another shot at Olympic Gold for the Aged. It’s back on the pitch until May 1.

UPDATE

Although this film finishes its present run today – 1 May – you can VOTE to get it back again. Let the Curzon’s Manager, Roy Galloway, know you want to see it.

The film delivers its protagonists to an India of vibrant colours, crashing discords, tumbling  castles and inedible food for one or two (with Hob Nobs and English chutney on the side).

Given a choice of retirement gloom in England or a new chance at life, love and the lot in Jaipur, what would you choose?

Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup – the ‘old cream’ of Ealing Studios – take the British side while Dev Patel heads the Bollywood stars.

A motley group of ageing Brits strongly object to being categorised as cot cases when they’re still more-or-less whole, of sound mind. They jump at the offer of a one-way flight and a chance to escape to a warm, colourful world where they might get another chance to grow old disgracefully.

The film opens with Evelyn Greenslade (Judi Dench) on the phone battling endless telephone hoops to talk with somebody human about her situation: husband dead, staggering debts he never spoke to her about and an acute sense of powerlessness in being alone for the first time in 40 years.

There’s nobody there to listen except her son; and he doesn’t listen, either. He simply says the house has to be sold and, of course, she’ll move in with them. Gulp. When a subtle sign of resistance hovers around Dame Dench’s lips, you know the film has begun properly.

Nobody that Dench plays is going to fade away and so, in a charmingly natural way, she not only leads the charge to India, she swiftly finds herself a job on the back of tea-dunking expertise as cultural advisor to an ambitious young team of telephonists who sell products to the British.

On the side, she and Bill Nighy are drawn together as they find a mutual affinity with the profusion of opportunities that India offers for a completely new start in the world.

As a couple, Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton), marital partners for 40 years, characterise the kind of fossilised pairing that holds together largely through loyalty and kindness, rather than any real match. The only attempt Jean makes to greet the outside world is when she follows Graham one day and confesses interest in him. Oh dear.

This precipitates Jean’s decision to go home, Douglas in tow. Before they reach the airport, though, they’re faced with decisions they would never have made at home, where ‘the form’ is more important than honesty. Wilton’s denouement as Jean is remarkably poignant.

As is Tom Wilkinson’s Graham, a recently retired judge. He provides some of the most moving  moments in the film as he heads for India, knowing his heart is at breaking point (for reasons that swiftly become clear; and are not solely due to a very dodgy ‘ticker’).

With a last burst of persistence, he finds the love of his life – an Indian man – and dies finding himself forgiven for not standing by his young friend and lover 40 years earlier. The revelation is that his former lover’s wife knows all about the past and they have shared everything; and it’s alright…

Coming from behind, as they say with racehorses, is the thoroughbred depiction by Maggie Smith as Muriel, the joker in the pack: an Englishwoman metamorphosing from whinging invalid to surprise saviour for all involved in the good ship Marigold.

Finally, and by no means least memorable, are Ronald Pickup and Celia Imrie as two ambitious retirees seeking, most urgently, partners in life (and in bed) before their chances fade altogether. The ‘go for it’ like an fast bowler with the wicket in view.

If the film’s extraordinary popularity has probably surpassed its producers’ wildest hopes, there has been a lot of hot air from critics about the film marginalising the ageing. How could the aged be more marginalised than they already are in the UK?

As for the film being disparaging – on the one hand to Indians and the other to British sensibilities – it’s a good start to exposing our humbug and prejudices. All of us. Only when we take risks out in the open, and become a bit more vulnerable, are we likely to start treating each other more like human beings, whatever our provenance.

Indeed, if The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel highlights the magic of India, it also looks at extremes of poverty and wealth; and– above all – it illuminates the need we have to experience life in bright colours, with intensity, as children do. It could hardly be said that 21^st-century Britain is a place where joie de vivre springs to mind.

The first time I went with three friends in Brighton to The Best Marigold Hotel – one gay and two straight. The youngest, in his 50s, sighed that “Judi Dench is always the same.” Strangely, he didn’t comment on the most moving part of the film, which sees Tom Wilkinson playing impeccably as Graham, the gay, retired judge.

The audience – primarily ‘grey power’ – gave a good round of applause at the end but, like most critics, many people failed to understand what the film – and the game – was about. (Eastbourne is clearly ahead of the rest, if the continued popularity of the film is any guide to play.)

An academically-oriented friend sent an outraged text, citing it as singularly crass and superficial. Judi Dench was fast-bowled for her exposition of peculiar English habits, i.e. ‘dunking biscuits in tea’.

Dev Patel, as idealistic proprietor of the hotel, was castigated even more roundly for his hysterical behaviour. Tom Wilkinson got stick, too, for playing a role that let down the gay community. This stumped me but I was bowled over when, after I said I enjoyed it, she said she had too.

How strange that most of us look twice at each other before deciding whether our own feelings are reliable enough to even comment truthfully on a film.

This sentiment underlies the Brit approach to relationships and emotions in the first part of the film but begins to break down in the fuming air of Jaipur. Can

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 07: (UK TABLOID L-R Dev Patel, Celia Imrie, Tom Wilkinson, Diana Hardcastle, Bill Nighy, Dame Judi Dench, Penelope Wilton and John Madden attend the world premiere of 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' at The Curzon Mayfair on February 7, 2012 in London, England. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

someone send me to India, please?

On my second visit to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, at the Eastbourne Curzon, from the moment I took my sunglasses off and lost my bag under the seat, I began to smile. And I was smiling like a Cheshire cat as I made my way out the door to my car, parked – almost miraculously – only 20 metres from the cinema doors.

Although the sentiments in The Best Marigold Hotel are indeed sometimes superficial, there’s a lot of depth to be found within the film. It must be said that when the ‘old cream’ of classical British cinema are given the chance to tackle something so close to home, it’s certainly something to be applauded. And enjoyed.

Pssst. It must be confessed that the Bollywood performances are no match for the British ones, except when it comes to cricket, but goodness gracious me, they are good-looking.

The Best Marigold Hotel was adapted by Ol Parker from Deborah Moggarch’s novel, These Foolish Things. It was directed by John Madden and produced by Graham Broadbent and Peter Czemin.

V.DuBourdieu©2012

The Best Marigold Hotel runs at the Curzon, Eastbourne, until 1 May.