BY Muhammad Muzammal
Columnist
Featuring a wealth of acting talent, "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is a delightful comedy about finding love and romance at any age. A touching preponderance on life, John Madden's film is about the simple pleasures that aging can bring, as opposed to disease or sickness and in all cases, a year closer to the ultimate end-all.
With a cast that features "Downton Abbey's" Maggie Smith and "Slumdog Millionaire" star Dev Patel, the film is a charming time at the theater, even if it does contain corny dialogue and offers an over exuberance of awkward cross-cultural references.
Reprising their roles from the predecessor, the cast is well-balanced considering the massive amount of characters involved. The central storyline follows a wedding between the young couple of the William-Shatner-like Sonny (Dev Patel) and the beautiful Sunaina (Tina Desai). The film also follows around older character such as Muriel (Maggie Smith) and Evelyn (Judi Dench) as Sonny and Muriel try to create the second of the film's titular establishment, a co-op complex in India made for various retirees and older couples. Borrowing the same evened and quick editing from the first film, "TSBEMH" crosses between its characters that include the confused Cousins (Ronald Pickup, Diana Hardcastle), the in-love-with-Evelyn Douglas (Bill Nighy), the heartbreaker of Indian men Madge (Celia Imrie), and the lovely mother of Sonny, Mrs. Kapoor (Lillete Dubey). The newest characters include the charming, handsome Guy Chambers (Richard Gere) and the dry Ty Burley (David Strathairn). Despite the zany romantic subplots and the cross-cultural dance numbers, Madden's most powerful feature is the wit and charm of the actors. Smith's Muriel delivers her lines with a condescendingly appropriate wink to America and all things foreign to England. Patel once again creates Sonny with open, slinky movements that threaten to be too goofy. Gere, with his glow, never outstays his welcome, joining the cast with his leading-man-type attraction. Despite the film's high points, the dance numbers feel like a bit of a stretch. With over-the-top characters all focused on love and romance, Madden tries to out-Bollywood Bollywood, but he unwisely includes dance numbers that don't feel as natural as they would in a Bollywood movie. Although choreographed well, there's still the Hollywood wall that separates this movie from the regular Bollywood flick, making it seem like a lazy example of a Bollywood movie. That may seem like a bit of a cruel reduction, but something was off when Evelyn was in India, away from her eventful partner, only to come back to be with him and dance a perfectly choreographed number with the hotel crew. What works in Bollywood cannot work in Hollywood unless Madden's movie fully embraces the over-the-top nuances of a Bollywood film. To do the opposite and make it work, the film would have to be extraordinary (example: Slumdog Millionaire). However, "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" is an overall pleasant experience that has an optimistic poignancy. Even if the characters are aging, there's never a time they cannot love or be in a relationship. Age is truly just a number.