The Sec­ond Best Exot­ic Marigold Hotel

Excitable young hotel man­ag­er Son­ny (Dev Patel) and his grouchy, Eng­lish part­ner Muriel (Mag­gie Smith) are speed­ing down the free­way to Cal­i­for­nia. She is chan­nel­ing stereo­types about old peo­ple – ​“Just tell me there’s a cup of tea and a bis­cuit wait­ing inside!” His strong Indi­an accent express­ing anachro­nis­ti­cal­ly polite British phras­ing also veers close to par­o­dy. What are the pair doing in San Diego thou­sands of miles from their hotel base in Jaipur? Pitch­ing busi­ness expan­sion to a leisure mogul is what. This process will fold in hotel inspec­tors, love trou­bles and Richard Gere, as it beats its fit­ting­ly ram­shackle path towards nar­ra­tive climax.

Can a fol­low-up built on the suc­cess and charm of an orig­i­nal hold inde­pen­dent mer­it? As far as Sonny’s cov­et­ed sec­ond hotel is con­cerned, sure, why not. In terms of The Sec­ond Best Exot­ic Marigold Hotel, the sequel to 2011’s charm­ing, mon­ey-mak­ing The Best Exot­ic Marigold Hotel, not real­ly. The cream of Britain’s age­ing act­ing aris­toc­ra­cy weave their mag­ic anew but this time there is no adapt­ed book struc­ture (Deb­o­rah Moggach’s These Fool­ish Things formed the basis first time round) to lend a shape. Direc­tor John Madden’s ensem­ble rom-com relies on an orig­i­nal screen­play by Ol Park­er, and there’s not enough sub­stance there­in to dra­mat­i­cal­ly sus­tain a two hour film.

Cin­e­ma pun­ters in their six­ties, sev­en­ties and eight­ies are hard­ly del­uged with sto­ries revolv­ing around their demo­graph­ic (just wait for Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years) mean­ing that despite its flaws, there are still moments when The Sec­ond Best Exot­ic Marigold Hotel con­veys a fresh per­spec­tive. Romance is the dish of the day with Eve­lyn (Judi Dench) and Dou­glas (Bill Nighy)’s ten­ta­tive attrac­tion form­ing the cen­tral dra­mat­ic arc. It’s a respect­ful courtship drawn out by the demands of Evelyn’s new job as a fab­ric pur­chas­er. ​“I’m 79-year-old,” she says with prim vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty after being offered the job. ​“We don’t mind if you don’t,” says her would-be employ­er gen­tly. Her tone sum­maris­es the film’s whole empow­er­ing atti­tude. Age is a false bar­ri­er and self-imposed ones are the real focus in this world.

The world in ques­tion is, once again, the Indi­an state of Rajasthan com­plete with colour­ful saris, fra­grant mar­ket­places and traf­fic jams of rick­ety tuk-tuks. It feels slight­ly hum­bug to point out that all native char­ac­ters are in ser­vice to the white char­ac­ters (just like dur­ing our colo­nial past!). After all, the servile Indi­an char­ac­ters are defined by their rel­a­tive youth and capa­bil­i­ty inas­much as their coun­try of origin.

It only sticks out this time because there is often a lull in stim­uli. Colour­ful, digres­sive sto­ries come and go, from the acci­den­tal hit that Nor­man (Ronald Pick­up) takes out on his girl­friend to Son­ny charis­mat­i­cal­ly bungling fiancée duties to Tam­sin Grieg mys­te­ri­ous­ly rock­ing up as the only white per­son below retire­ment age. Wit and charm and titans of per­for­mance pro­vide jolts of enter­tain­ment and bite-sized food for thought but this sec­ond tid­bit is less tasty than the tif­fin-box offered by the original.