Piyush Roy
Can a film experience be like catching up with old friends? The ‘onscreen’ friends that I am referring to here are characters that become a favourite after the watching of a film for their sheer ability to connect, strike some chord or simply make you think and care about them long after a movie experience is over. Isn’t that one of the reasons why we don’t mind watching some films again and again? And shouldn’t that be the most decisive factor while commissioning sequels… beyond of course, the milking of the goodwill of a success project!
Rarely have I looked forward to ‘after thought’ sequels, and definitely never the second one. The ‘second’ often is the toughest challenge moment in a series, where the content tends to be the weakest, courtesy the pressures of having to live up to the expectations of a good first, along with that extra need to make an impact. A series’ generally tends to get steady by the third, especially with sequels that are planned only after the success of a film, unlike those that are inherent to the telling of a long plot like the Lords of the Rings.
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel(2015) however is a welcome exception. Yes, its narrative and some sub-plots could have worked out better, but not a moment seemed wasted in this two-hour-long merry-go-round because it fabulously retained the biggest attraction of its predecessor, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel(2012)– uplifting moments of genuine slice-of-life comedy, served by characters that make you smile courtesy a writing that leaves you with hope, rarely experienced in films these days!
Topping that attract are some great dialogues, not just humorous, but a wealth of ‘quotable quotes’ worth taking an instant note of, especially the film’s many life messages liberally scattered all over.
‘The difference between what we want and what we fear is in the width of an eye lash…’
‘It takes team work to make a dream work!’
‘Let go, and the fun starts…’
‘There is no present (or a gift) like time’(a thought that becomes all the more pertinent in the context of the old).
A British widow finds a new job in India at 79; she also experiences again, fresh feelings of being on the threshold of a new companionship. Another 79-year-old friend, 19 days elder to her wonders if such excitements are really worth it at that age.
Trying a new life again, when so old, it’s natural to ask oneself and reflect – ‘How many new lives can we have?’The answer, ‘As many as we like…’
And at least, as long as we can… why not? Why being old should be an apology? That’s quite an empowering thought as a dialogue, but it becomes all the more impactful in its delivery by a character that has been epitomising its essence until that moment of reflection.
Memorable Characterisations are the film’s greatest strength, courtesy an unapologetic casting of some of the finest and fabulously aged actors of British cinema. Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy – just watching them emote, their silences, their gaze, that little hint in an unspoken corner of their seasoned seeing… not to discount the sheer graceful beauty of their age. They just don’t play characters in their late, sixties and seventies, they play themselves, their (real) age– both Judi Dench and Maggie Smith turned 80 this year! That’s what makes the Best Exotic Marigold franchisee such a rare treasure, a truly heart-warming celebration of the old and the beautiful, that would make even the toughest-to-please critic tend to overlook its occasional flaws…
How many films in recent memory have given us characters, not one or two, but each and everyone, who made us smile and feel, care for and get inspired about?
As an Indian viewer, one can also smile for the film’s fairly balanced accuracy in portrayal of the India of today. Perhaps its inclusive empathy is also because its British protagonists by the second movie are no longer outsiders. A common grouse with Western narratives on India has always been about them either being too patronising (‘as in beautiful postcards of a touristy India’) or too critiquing (‘of the ills, the poverty, etc.’). The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotelengages with the spirit of India, and admires and admits the changes that are defining its daily lives. So you see a member of the working class,living in a fairly comfortable puccahouse with a neighbourhood of relatives; you feel the enthusiasm driving the ambitions of the young from the Indian middle class; and you also engage with members of the rich upper class as characters not caricatures. Judi Dench’s character after a dinner visit to the home of her Indian colleague, reflects – ‘There is no welcome like an Indian welcome.’And comes an empathetic endorsement, ‘That’s because it’s genuine!’
I cannot think of a mainstream feature film from the West set in India liberally admitting these lived alternatives that are also a part of its ethos. That positivity in perspective however is not limited to the film’s depiction of India alone. It’s to that larger idea of celebrating age and the aged – they may not be perfect, some of their thoughts and actions may seem tad out-of-date, they may even irritate occasionally in their childlike obstinacies – but that doesn’t make them any less important, unneeded, unlovable or unattractive.
Actually going by the message of the best exotic marigold series, old age, if one underscores those occasional trips to the hospital, could actually be the most exciting phase in one’s life… Think about it!
Meanwhile, eagerly looking forward to the Third Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
