The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
“We are all on a pilgrimage of some kind”
Reflections by David Nelson D.Min.
When seven Brits, for a variety of reasons, accept an offer to come to India and reside at “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, they fail to find what they expect, but without exception they discover something else and often something better. The film is wonderfully constructed with tiny intros for each of the seven key players. They are quickly assembled in a row of seats at the airport beginning a journey that will change their lives now and forever.
Each person is seeking something different even though their paths converge on several planes. Evelyn (Judi Dench) is looking for dignity following her husband’s death. She has been a faithful homemaker and now must find a job. She discovers not only a good job as culture broker, she also discovers herself in a more brilliant light.
Douglas (Bill Nighy) is faithful to a fault in an empty marriage and is looking for spiritual meaning in ancient sacred spaces. He wants to explore the meaning in the other’s culture and religion only to discover that inside him there is a whole world of spiritual energy lunging for the light.
Jean (Penelope Wilton) is Douglas’s wife of 39 years and agrees to the India adventure but refuses to venture out of the hotel. She is not happy with the marriage, with the foreign country or herself, but finally in a bold self-less gesture gives new hope to both herself and her husband.
Muriel (Maggie Smith) is looking for a quick hip replacement that is only available in India. She has spent her life caring for others and has sharpened her racism and resentment to a sharp cutting edge. She finds herself in “hell” unable to escape until an untouchable woman gives her a peek at a new way of looking at life and more important at herself.
Graham (Tom Wilkinson), a high court judge, has lived with a painful and shameful memory of the only person he ever loved. He returns to India following retirement hoping to find that person and somehow make amends or at least to confess his lifelong guilt. His reunion is a surprise and a completion far beyond what he was searching for.
Norman (Ronald Pickup) has been using women for his personal pleasure all his life and is frightened about getting so old he can no longer attract and perform. He looks for and discovers a possible playmate and through a bit of uncharacteristic honesty accomplishes the seduction. What he really discovers, however, is the value of relationship. It is never to late to fall in love.
Madge (Celia Imrie) has failed at a number of marriages but still thinks that someone else can be the source of meaning and happiness. Much to her surprise the quality of life is not determined by another person, but by each individual. In her attempts and failures she eventually falls in love, perhaps for the first time, with herself.
Sonny (Dev Patel) is the young Indian man who actually believes in the fantasy of the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and refuses to give in to the reality that the building and the idea are melting in front of him. His mother comes to rescue him and return him to the home where he belongs and he almost, but not quite, gives up the hotel and the woman of his desires and dreams.
These eight characters provided me with more than eight metaphors for meaning in life. The movie invited me to reflect on the final third of my life. We are all on a pilgrimage and I suspect, like the characters in the movie, our desired destination may be a noble but in the end it may not be what happens. Sonny says if first but all of the characters finally embrace the truth that “Everything will be alright in the end, and if it is not alright, it is not the end.”