News location:

Canberra Today 25°/28° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review / ‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (PG) ***

Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel CroppedTHREE years after delighting audiences with observations of a group of ageing Brit expats whose lives have followed varying paths, writer Ol Parker and director John Madden revisit them still living in the Indian hotel owned by Sunny (Dev Patel) whose business skills don’t match his ambition.

This time he’s in California seeking financing to renovate another run-down hotel. Much of the film deals with that ambition and the people sent by the financiers to review, clandestinely, the proposal on the ground.

The core cast remains unchanged from the original troupe. Maggie Smith, the former charlady who’s now assistant manager of the hotel; Judi Dench, now working for a merchandising company and Bill Nighy, the tourist guide yearning to take her in his arms; Celia Imrie the bundle of raging hormones in need of relief and Ronald Pickup the bachelor having a thing with a woman (Diana Hardcastle) who has no wish to remain celibate.

Newcomers are Richard Gere playing a writer whom Sunny believes is the undercover agent sent to evaluate his financial request and Tamsin Greig as a daughter waiting the arrival of her mother.

The film looks good. The plot is unburdened by insoluble issues. The dialogue is largely plebian with occasional one-liners of varying sharpness. The sparkle of the original has dimmed, its freshness has faded and its dramatic impetus has turned flaccid. In short, it’s a sequel showing the problems that bedevil most sequels.

At all cinemas

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Music

Cunio takes top job at NZ School of Music

Immediate past head of the ANU School of Music, Kim Cunio, is to become head of school at Te Kōki, the NZ School of Music, part of the Victoria University of Wellington, reports HELEN MUSA.

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews