Be warned, nothing can save this film except the talents of the likes of Dench, Smith, and Nighy
When John Madden’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel came out in 2012 nobody quite predicted what a hit it would be. But the film about a bunch of elderly Brits’ on vacation in India and their misadventures with hotel bookings struck a chord with viewers, all thanks to its stellar cast which included the likes of Maggi Smith, Judi Dench and Bill Nighy.
The same cast return, without quite as much success, to the unimaginatively named sequel. The dilapidated establishment run by the disarmingly earnest Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) where the Brits stayed in the prequel is now thriving, with all the original inhabitants having decided to stay on. Run by an iron hand now with the help of the formerly extremely dour and still redoubtable Muriel Donnelly (the protean Maggie Smith) who co-manages the now homely hotel, Sonny and Muriel, newly triumphant with their successful venture, decide to expand.
The film begins with the two unlikely partners visiting California to pitch their idea to Ty Burley (the handsome silver haired David Strathairn) a hotel magnate who they hope will invest in their brainchild - an old people’s hotel franchise. The two return to Jaipur and to their old and young friends filled with a kind of glee, having been told that a hotel inspector will anonymously visit them, after which a decision will be made.
The inhabitants of the hotel, not a single one of them being under a certain age, are up to their own shenanigans, most of which are continuations of romances struck up in the first film. The most tender and charming of which involves the shy but determinedly independent Evelyn Greenslade (Judi Dench) and Douglas Ainslie (Bill Nighy) – a blundering, adorably reticent English gentlemen who worships Evelyn’s gentleness, particularly after having been so ill-treated by his battle-axe of a wife in the previous installment.
Sonny too is finally engaged to the lovely but slightly vacuous Sunaina (Tina Desai), a union which also clearly addles his own brains, for never has a character been written and brought to life with such little finesse.
Patel’s usual boyish charm flounders in his ill-wrought role as the neurotic Sonny who flaps about his precious hotel setting everyone on edge, including his bewildered, beautiful mother Mrs. Kapoor (the luminous Lillette Dubey), as he tries to suss out the anonymous hotel inspector. Viewers, fans, be warned, nothing can save this film except the talents of the likes of Dench, Smith, and Nighy – who do ultimately end up salvaging this just about bearable wreck of a film.