Last night, Hil and I watched (actually re-watched) “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (2011). The movie is about a group of seven retired (elderly) Brits who decide to move to India to retire and live out the rest of their days. Well, actually, it’s only six. One of the pensioners (Dame Maggie Smith’s character) is actually only going to India for a hip replacement. | |
The hotel owner / manager Sonny Kapoor is played by Dev Patel. His dream is to take a falling down hotel which his father owned and turn it into a modern hotel to “out-source” old age to foreigners. The business concept is in-fact quite viable as my wife has a good friend who knows two colleagues who have done just this very thing (retired to India) and I have a good friend who spends six months of every year living in the Philippines. The fact is, if you can stand the climate and the culture, it is quite feasible to leave the United States to live out your retirement years in relative comfort in a “poorer” part of the world where your currency (retirement pension) buys more. | |
The cast of this movie is exceptional. The movie is a lightly comedic drama. That is, it is meant to convey a number of ideas about “finding one’s self” in old age, by being willing to take chances and start over in a new place. As such, it is a “fairy tale” as much as a pure drama. The comedy comes in from the “normal” course of cultural clashes the retirees experience and there is a particularly funny set piece involving the girlfriend of the hotel manager, his mother and one of the guests. | |
If you enjoyed “The King’s Speech” or “Quartet“, you’ll almost certainly enjoy this film. I certainly did. Final recommendation: Highly Recommended! | |
. | |
On This Day In: | |
2023 | Wide And Yawning |
2022 | Where One Goes |
2021 | A Direct Relationship |
Another Night Train South (Can’t You See) | |
2020 | One Person’s Roses… |
2019 | In The Long-Run |
2018 | #NeverAgain |
Doss II | |
Doesn’t / Does | |
2017 | Talent Hates To Move |
2016 | Looking To November |
2015 | It Isn’t The End |
Prospero’s Precepts | |
2014 | Friends |
2013 | Learning Bitter |
2012 | Remembrance, Minstrels & Going Off To War |
May I Have More Happiness, Please? | |
2011 | There Is No God, But God |
2010 | Another Running Book… |
It Isn’t The End
March 1, 2015 by kmabarrett
Leave a comment