You may recognize that as the famous line by Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. The scene is a perfect example of a brilliant actor bringing the words on his script to life (even if he is talking about a milkshake!).
The script for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel from Ol Parker (Imagine Me & You) is certainly not as well-crafted a work as There Will Be Blood, but the British acting royalty who have been brought on board for Marigold Hotel are similarly talented in elevating their lines so highly that through their sheer talent they can save a film, like Marigold Hotel, from an otherwise predictable story.
In the film, seven British senior citizens all find themselves, for various reasons, retiring to an Indian hotel, advertised for being intended for "the elderly and the beautiful." Yet when the arrive, the hotel is in much greater disarray than the pictures in the brochure. This adds a comedic side-story, but the real plot is found in the identities and relationships of the characters as they each attempt to create a new life.
Marigold Hotel effectively avoids the biggest problem ensemble films generally have, - an issue I addressed in my review of another lengthily-titled film, What to Expect When You're Expecting - that assembling a huge cast often means opting for quantity over quality in terms of dramatic talent. Marigold Hotel somehow managed to get together a large cast, each of whom can actually act.
Judi Dench (the James Bond series), Bill Nighy (the Pirates of the Caribbean series), Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton), and Maggie Smith (the Harry Potter series) are especially good and become the characters we care about the most. Maggie Smith particularly stood out to me in dramatic moments, as did Tom Wilkinson.
That being said, the other actors all did well too. And when you add Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), Celia Imrie (Bridget Jones's Diary), Ronald Pickup (Prince of Persia), and Penelope Wilton (Pride & Prejudice) to the aforementioned stars, it's really hard to have a bad movie. (Although Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy did prove you can fill a movie with phenomenal actors and it can still suck.)
If you had to use one word to describe the film, it would likely be "charming." The character have flaws, no doubt, yet they are still average, relatable, likable people. We sympathize with them and connect with their struggles and conflicts, with their triumphs and losses, with their joys and fears.
More than charming, the film is also funny, in a very subtle British way. But it also gets serious, with some truly heartbreaking moments. There's real emotion portrayed on screen and we can feel it in the audience. You don't have to be in your "golden years" to know what loneliness feels like, or to relate to money problems, or to share a fear of the unknown.
The actors may be older (Celia Imrie is 60, Bill Nighy is 63, Tom Wilkinson is 64, Penelope Wilton is 66, Ronald Pickup is 72, and Maggie Smith and Judi Dench are both 78), but you will connect with at least one of them - likely more than one - regardless of your age difference.
Marigold Hotel does suffer from one of the common problems of ensemble films in that having so many actors can limit how in-depth we can explore each character. A couple of them could have been taken out, Imrie and Pickup's characters being the clearest choices, to give us more time with the other characters.
Seemingly aware of this, Marigold Hotel does seem to try to intentionally take the time to let each character develop. This helps solve the so-many-characters-so-little-time problem to a certain extent, but also makes the film feel a bit longer than it needed to be, especially since it is pretty obvious most of the time where the story-lines will go and how they will conclude.
Overall, director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) has put together a delightful and heartwarming film. It would be a mistake to say this is a movie about old people. It is a movie simply about people, who happen to be in a certain stage of life. And it's a pretty good movie at that, which reminds us it's never too late to rediscover who you are.
The Final Word: Wait to rent it.
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