The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a surprise hit that captured the heart of many people. The movie is basically a Who's Who in the British acting scene. With a cast including Maggie Smith, Judie Dench, Penelope Winton, Bill Nighy etc you are basically watching an acting masterclass playing out on screen. The original presented points of difference that eventually converged and wrapped up the plots nicely, the second entry needed to branch out and converge again to just tell the stories. The end result was some broken characters and story lines that you felt they were going nowhere. This is not a criticism of the performance of the cast but a script that is over ambitious and eventually failed to deliver.

The premise of the story was quite natural although I did question about the timing of the back drop but then if the foundation was questioned nothing would make sense anymore. The themes seemed to be about moving on and re-establishing but the pace felt like plotting along and see what's happening. The first movie had circumstantial triggers that led to determination. But in the second movie most of the cast seemed lost and trying to go through rediscovery again. This could be true as they were adjusting to life in a completely different country while at the same time trying to find new meaning on top of the meaning they had discovered in the first movie.  Circumstance wise Maggie Smith’s character had taken the centre stage although the story was more about Dev Patel as the protégé who was trying to pursue further success. It did wrap up nicely by Maggie Smith declaring it is time for his adventures. As for other characters, I particularly had issue about the merry-go-round type relationship between Judi Dench’s character and Bill Nighy’s character. Why must it take so many people and so many coincidences to actually get something happening? They found what is missing in the first moving and then should just get on with the program. Some could argue it is because of the timeframe of the movie in the chronology but then still they are retired people do they have that much time to drag on “When Harry Met Sally” style? The storylines for other characters progressed in a similar fashion making me wondering,  “how many of those thread balls do I need to follow and catch up with to find out what is going to happen?” It was not particularly thrilling even though I admired all the acting powerhouses on display.

Dev Patel’s character was without a doubt the sore in my eyes throughout the whole movie. The upbeat optimistic character that was built up in the first movie that cast rays of sunshine to the whole theme was gone completely. What was left was a hollow and annoying character that you just need to take deep breaths again and again to get through his scenes. Again this is not a criticism of his ability but the demolishing of a well-built character that suddenly is going nowhere.  I understand that in the first movie they might not have sufficient time to build all the backstories and flash out all the relationships but that was the beauty of it. I accepted the characters as who they are and did not feel like I need to know more about them because everything was nicely introduced in the first few scenes. In this instalment, the try-hard approach to create more flesh and blood characters in my opinion turned most of the well created characters into bloody messes. For me character building is circumstantial and if you need to force a back story that eventually dragged the development of both the characters and the plot then it is better to just leave them alone making space for good memories for the audience. I personally would prefer the plot to be about further discoveries that excited them so providing more opportunities for both funny and serious moments. They can still question their own mortality, relationships and other things, but in the context of an exciting brave new world.  Getting too serious for the sake of getting too serious just did not cut it for me.

It seems that I had lots of criticisms for this movie but that is because I completely adored the first one and had extremely high expectations when such a stellar cast agreed to sign on for more. It might be unfair to the movie on my side but then that’s what you created when you have such kind of project in your hands. I still like a lot of great punch lines that were scattered around in the script (and mostly delivered by the extraordinary Maggie Smith in a casual throw away manner) and this shows the quality of writing. I was just hoping for a more positive view of things without dragging into the past all the time and fireworking all kinds of melodrama because that was not what the first movie was about.

For me I would watch the first movie again and again (and I did and still got great laughs and tears from it) but for “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” it really is just as its title suggested “The Second Best”.