The future’s marigold?
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL
Cert. 12A
Running time: 124 minutes
Director: John Madden
Though this film came out in February, the DVD was released in June and gave me a chance to see it.
The cast list reads like a who’s who of fine British actors over 60: Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton and others. Such talent assures engaging performances. And the film asks a pressing question: what shall we do with our old age?
It begins with the disparate characters, each facing frustrations connected with modern life and declining years. One is awaiting a hip replacement, another being shown round a flat with a hand-rail all round the room; there is the aftermath of bereavement, an unhelpful call centre conversation, the being over-used as a free child-minder by offspring, and the sheer loneliness and pointlessness of life. This is done with wit and perception. We identify and understand.
The solution the film presents is that these people buy into a retirement scheme in Jaipur, India — a hotel which offers retirement facilities at a bargain price. Of course it is not all the participants hoped for and they respond in their different ways. It becomes apparent that each of them is seeking something.
Be true to yourself?
This is where the gospel of secularism comes in. Find yourself and be true to yourself — that is the answer to a happy old age. One of the characters, having done that, dies, very quietly, with no pain or inconvenience to himself or anyone else. We are truly in a best exotic dream world. Lifelong prejudices melt away under the bright Indian sunshine (the scenes and colour of this film are a true advert for the Indian tourist board). Most of the characters solve old age by effectively becoming young again — useful work, sex and love are just there for the looking. And so the film propagates the lie that this life is all, take the best deal that you can for yourself. All done in a gentle, humorous and heart-warming way. This is feel-good cinema.
But any thinking person will not feel good at the end of it. None of the real challenges of old age are addressed in anything but a shallow way. The death is followed by a funeral — a Hindu outdoor cremation. All very nice and multi-faith. The only comment being that it takes a long time to burn a human body on a funeral pyre. No afterlife of any kind is either considered or discussed.
A loveless marriage is exposed — and here is some of the best acting of the film — but again the moral seems to be that the right thing to do is find freedom and walk away. This is the best exotic marigold future.
A positive take on old age is a welcome idea, an antidote to the all-pervasive cult of youth, but this film offers no hope beyond turning back the clock. Everybody in the film is in remarkably good shape both physically and mentally. No one is mentioning death.
There are things for a Christian to learn from this film. A sour response to anything that is joyous in this life, so brilliantly demonstrated by Penelope Wilton in the film, is certainly something to avoid. But here is a generation, educated, middle-class, self-sufficient, that needs the gospel — a generation that has written off Christianity. The future can be genuinely bright, less exotic, less marigold, more real and eternal in Christ.
