The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on March 1, 2015 @ tonymacklin.net.

The sequel to a film about old age is more old age.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is not the Second Coming. It's the Second Going.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a paean to flightiness. But the characters don't take flight; they flit. For most of the film, a fine cast is caught in a holding pattern.

It's hard to find any character to care about.

The main premise of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is that Sonny (Dev Patel) and Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith) are trying to expand to a second hotel in Jaipur, India.

The film begins as Sonny and Muriel drive in a convertible with the top down as rock music blares on the car radio. They're in the USA, speeding on Route 66 on their way to San Diego for a business meeting. After that, the film slows down. It doesn't rock; it rolls. And stalls.

Back in Jaipur, Sonny prepares to kowtow to the unidentified guest who is a hotel inspector rating his project. He assumes that person is Guy (Richard Gere). Sonny is obsequious, aggressively pretentious, unctuous, and callow. Not much to care for there.

Most of the other characters are annoying. Two of the women are 79, on the verge of being octogenarians. I assume the movie is aimed at octogenarians, but not many octogenarians go to the movies. But those who do should be pleased.

Those who honor wonderful actors may be less so. Thank the gods for Maggie Smith's cynical persona. At least the persona is evident for a while. For much of the film Maggie Smith exhibits her unflappable attitude. Rheumy-eyed, she delivers her lines with her delicious croak.

When someone asks Muriel, "How was America?" she responds, "It makes death more tempting." And when Madge (Celia Imric) keeps telling her about a romantic dilemma, Muriel (Maggie) says, with typical aplomb, "I don't care."

Director John Madden realizes what he has in Maggie, so he gives her two lengthy voiceovers at the end. She gets the final words. Unfortunately, they're not up to Smith's talent. The lines written by Ol Parker (did he drop the "d" from old) turn her into semi-mush. Ol, what have you done? Where's Julian Fellowes when we need him?

Another great actor who gets short shrift is Bill Nighy. Nighy may have the least interesting, most thankless role of his career as one of the guests at the hotel. His role is pretty much reduced to standing and waiting, while Evelyn (Judi Dench) flits by. His only acting is fluttering his eyelids. He looks like he's bewildered, expecting someone to write him a part.

Veteran director Madden relies on his editor (himself and/or uncredited Victoria Boydell) to try to jump start his film, but he's merely able to cobble it together haphazardly.

At one point Muriel complains that the water for her tea isn't boiling.

Maggie Smith realizes The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is tepid tea.