By Sandra Hall
★★★★
Could it be true? Are we witnessing a new movie phenomenon – the franchise for seniors?
With the release of the sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which grossed a healthy $135 million worldwide, it could be. This time round, the director John Madden and his producers have enhanced the original formula – droll English self-deprecation meets irrepressible Indian optimism – by spraying it with glitter.
Bollywood and Hollywood have both come to the party. The climax is an Indian wedding where most of the mature-age cast take to the dance floor, banishing all thought of hip replacements with the verve of their performances. Accounting for the Hollywood element is Richard Gere.
Age and verve: The second instalment is as likeable as the first in spite of its mounting implausibilities.Credit: Laurie Sparham
He shows up after the Hotel's ebullient young proprietor, Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), returns from the US, where he's been seeking investors for his expansion plans. Gere arrives soon afterwards, claiming to be a writer researching a novel. But Sonny is convinced his smooth new guest has been sent by his prospective backers to check out the establishment.
It's a feeble bit of plotting but thanks to the qualities of a cast that could mine comedy out of a homewares catalogue, it does nothing to diminish the fun. Bill Nighy is still peddling his brand of melancholy diffidence, which is still slowing down his romance with an equally tentative Judi Dench, and Ronald Pickup still fancies his chances as a late-blooming Casanova. Sadly, however, Maggie Smith has mellowed. She's still dispensing caustic one-liners as Mrs Donnelly, the former London charwoman who's been reborn as Sonny's accountant and business partner, but she's feeling maternal towards him. And sentiment has softened her delivery.
It's a common complaint. Love is in the air and it's not nearly as good at producing laughs as the culture clashes of the original. The gang has adapted to life in Jaipur. They even have jobs. Douglas (Nighy) has become a slightly absent-minded tour guide, Evelyn (Dench) is a textile buyer for an international export company, and Norman (Pickup) and the flirtatious Madge (Celia Imrie) have found their metier running the bar at the local expats' club. Madge has also acquired two rich Indian suitors. What's more, Sonny's sharp-tongued Mamaji (Lillete Dubey) is being courted by Gere.
The upshot of all this is pure wish-fulfilment, pitched to a wider age group than before since Sonny's engagement to the beautiful Sunaina (Tina Desai) encounters some pitfalls that push it to the centre of the frame. And while the result is as likeable as ever, you do have to turn a blind eye to the swiftly mounting implausibilities of the plot. So no franchise, after all, I hope. A Third Best... would really strain the relationship.