While not quite as memorable as some of the other geriatric-themed movies of the past, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel still manages to pass along a plethora of nice messages to the audience members that need it the most.
It individually explores the situations of several pre-octogenarians and why they have all come to stay at the same hotel in India. Whether it's to find love, to rediscover themselves, or to find themselves for the first time, the trip is life-changing for everyone involved. The movie eventually brings it all back around to the two twenty-year-old characters who are trying to dodge their families' mutual disapproval of their love.
The film starts off very slow and we are overcome with the anxiety of their eventual arrival to India. Although at first it's unclear why certain characters are leaving their homes at all. And like many ensemble films, the tone gets mixed and matched a lot along the way.
At times it has a hard time balancing all of the characters' stories--which may attribute to the long runtime--but it still manages to portray so much of their depth. Yet two of the characters' stories remain slightly unexplored, but it may have been deliberate.
This film might fly over the heads of the younger viewers. And perhaps it's meant to. And while The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel may surpass it's niche at some points, it's just as classically heartfelt as the best films of this genre.
Twizard Rating: 81
I like Vince Vaughn as much as the next guy, and I think he makes any movie better, but when the script and the direction is terrible, it's a little harder to salvage. And I'm talking about easily fixable mistakes. One character says that he's 67 years old, and then there's a time lapse of 1 year and he still talks about how he's 67 years old. It's just really sloppy.
Dan (Vince Vaughn) quits his job to start a company to compete with his former. He recruits two hopefuls (Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson), and together they try to make a new life for themselves. A year later they have gotten nowhere and Dan is trying to send his kids to private school because they are being bullied at their current school. Dan and his two employees chase a deal all the way to Berlin, but realize that they may be the decoy deal.
The script is very unorganized and it makes us put the pieces together for a lot of crucial information. The whole time Dan is trying to make business moves, but only the business-minded audience members will understand what's going on and what the significance of certain characters are.
There are also huge narrative flaws, which include fitful pacing and inconsistencies in the tone. It can't decide whether it wants to be vulgar or sweet, and it doesn't balance the two very well.
Despite all these negative comments, I did enjoy the movie. It has a sincere anti-bullying theme and I laughed throughout. It's just not very well-made. Some jokes fall flat, some don't even make sense, and there is too much reliance on the humor of Vaughn's straight man to Franco's cluelessness.
A movie's gotta be at least a little more than just the laughs in provides. It has to have a well thought out structure. It can't win without it--otherwise, what's to prevent every other person who can write funny jokes from cranking out films the lazy way?
Twizard Rating: 69
