The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has been successful in its appeal to mature clientele looking for a welcome in their autumn days, so enthusiastic young proprietor Sonny Kapoor seeks to expand the franchise: possibly this is one pressure too much on top of his impending marriage.
2011's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a delight: funny, colourful, moving and human. It carried some great truths and entertained as it did so. It left me wanting to know more about these people after it had finished. And now a sequel comes along, continuing their stories, and adding a couple of newbies in Tamsin Grieg and (gasp!) Richard Gere. There is additional plot material concerning Sonny's empire-building ambitions and assorted ramifications (at least part of which borrows heavily from Fawlty Towers' Hotel Inspector episode), and the thread concerning the apparent contract out on Carol is, frankly, ludicrous but, otherwise this sequel happily extends the stories of the characters we met in the first film. The trailer dangles certain plot developments in front of us, and plays tricks with us, too.
Gentle humour underlies everything, as exemplified by the title: it works as the title of a sequel, but it is also a fine joke, balancing Sonny's gauche self-promotion with a joyously naive lack of awareness of how colloquial English usage results in it damning itself with faint praise.
Lovely.
2011's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a delight: funny, colourful, moving and human. It carried some great truths and entertained as it did so. It left me wanting to know more about these people after it had finished. And now a sequel comes along, continuing their stories, and adding a couple of newbies in Tamsin Grieg and (gasp!) Richard Gere. There is additional plot material concerning Sonny's empire-building ambitions and assorted ramifications (at least part of which borrows heavily from Fawlty Towers' Hotel Inspector episode), and the thread concerning the apparent contract out on Carol is, frankly, ludicrous but, otherwise this sequel happily extends the stories of the characters we met in the first film. The trailer dangles certain plot developments in front of us, and plays tricks with us, too.
Gentle humour underlies everything, as exemplified by the title: it works as the title of a sequel, but it is also a fine joke, balancing Sonny's gauche self-promotion with a joyously naive lack of awareness of how colloquial English usage results in it damning itself with faint praise.
Lovely.