It wasn’t my choice tonight, but I did enjoy it. The second in the Anglo-Indian Marigold Hotel series picks up several years later. In the first, a group of British oldsters who are short on pension money, take up retirement in a hotel in Jaipur, India. The hotel is run Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), an energetic, ambitious, talkative guy who wants to make his way in the world by rehabbing a run-down old hotel. He is not beyond a certain amount of salesmanship, embellishment and outright fabrication as he promotes his relatively cheap retirement destination, but his charm, energy and optimism makes you forgive him and you hope he succeeds. He has high hopes, a pretty girlfriend and, while he somewhat exploits the retirees, he also cares about them and wants to do the right thing.
It’s not surprising that the second episode continues this story. Several years later, the hotel has grown to its limits and Sonny is engaged to his girlfriend and his ambitions now include opening a second hotel and selling his concept to a foreign chain. Much of the British cast carried over to the second movie. They have been living there for a while, some have jobs in or out of the hotel, others have passed on, others are in decline. Each day, Sonny walks around the hotel and does a role call…as he says, it’s better to find out before they lay in the rooms too long. Sonny’s plans get a boost when an American chain meets with him and tells him that they will send an undercover customer to see how the hotel functions. When two new temporary (not retiree) guests arrive on the same day, Sonny thinks one is the corporate customer, but unfortunately he may have picked the wrong guest, or then, maybe not?
Meanwhile, the other plot line is Sonny’s upcoming marriage. Engaged to the gorgeous Sunaina (Tina Desai), Sonny is afraid of competition from a “friend”, a guy who also has hotel ambitions and seems to want to move in on Sunaina too. All along, the story anticipates a big, celebratory, colorful, musical Indian wedding and things seem to build to that. Before that can happen, however, we have to see whether Sonny’s expansion plans will play out, who really is the corporate observer and whether Sonny’s competitor will spoil his marriage plans.
Did I like it? What I would say is that I was enjoyably entertained. A lot of this movie seems pasted together, as though a lot of only somewhat related sequences were pasted together without much of a flow. Continuity seems to be missing sometimes, but, at the end it does all come together. The director, John Madden (Shakespeare In Love, Marigold Hotel) seems to really like having India as his setting. Most of the cast who are promoted as stars are well known and old British actors, including Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith and the lone American, apparent corporate rep Guy Chambers, played by Richard Gere. The most enjoyable acting, however comes from Dev Patel and Tina Desai, who are less well known but whose cheerful energy really carries the film. The cinematography is excellent, bathing us in the colors and crowded energy of India, which melds with the musical soundtrack, Indian in style, but written by a Brit. The movie follows the Bollywood convention of ending with a big, extravagant production with colorful costumes, dancing and music. I have to admit, however, that I thought that segment was too short. I spent the whole movie waiting for the musical production, but felt let down when it ended quickly and moved on to a more dramatic finale. I enjoyed the movie, but have to admit that I would have liked it to seem more Indian and less British.
