The Sun Sets On The British Empire-Dame Judith Dench’s The Best Exotic Madrigal Hotel

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

The Best Exotic Madrigal Hotel, starring Dame Judith Dench, Maggie Smith, Dev Patel, 2012  

 

In the days of the Raj, in the days when the British ruled India with an iron fist, a massive naval fleet at the ready, and footloose soldiers of fortune (or rather of no fortune since the eldest son took all the dough and land and left younger brothers to the universities, the clergy, the civil service and the army) no one from the imperial center would have thought to retire to that benighted country. Rather they would spent their youth grabbing whatever they could grab and retire back in the old country in some at least modest splendor. Ah, but times have changed and John Bull has hit upon tough times as the denizens of this witty and thoughtful film demonstrate. Now the average Brit seeing his or her life circumstances at home reduced looked to the new emerging economic engine of the 21^st century the old Raj to make ends meet, or to just get away from the stale life in the home country. 

Of course the setting of this film in the old Raj, and in an old hotel that had seen better days with a cast of wayward elderly ex-patriates and a wacky entrepreneurial Indian allows the director and scriptwriter to investigate all kinds of subjects from multiculturalism to haughty vestiges of the old Empire refracted through new India, ageism, sexual impulses about the older set, adjusting (or not) to a new culture, old school closeted gayness, stale marriages, failed marriages and the aches and pains of growing old wherever you find yourself marooned. Somebody had to tell the story though and that is done through the thoughts of the narrator Mrs. Greensleeves (played by Dame Judith Dench) who had gone off to India to live cheaply since her late husband did not provide enough to keep her going, and to find herself of course. Along the way she does so although not without the usual problems of those who were sheltered from the world by old school marriage when hubby did, or didn’t, take care of everything. She finds herself, her presence helps a husband caught in a horrible and stale marriage find himself (and indirectly that scorned wife as well), helps a lonely old man finds love, helps a lonely old women continuing to hope to find love, and helps the Indian innkeeper to stand up for himself against the old India represented by his old-fashioned mother. All wrapped up in the bow of a hotel that had seen better days, and all relationships filled with if not happy endings at least hope as they fade. A feel good movie with a great ensemble cast well worth a couple of hours of your time.