THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL is a movie of questionable taste and worse political judgement.  It's a testament to its charming cast that it manages to slip down rather easily, all the same. 

The basic concept is that a bunch of middle-class English pensioners move to a ramshackle Rajasthani hotel and experience epiphanies. The recent widow (Judi Dench) learns independence; the retired civil servant (Bill Nighy) and his wife (Penelope Wilton) learn that they do not love or even like each other; the two desperate singles (Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup) learn that are still sexually attractive; the racist (Maggie Smith) learns tolerance; and the gay high court judge (Tom Wilkinson) finds peace. 

The problem with the film is the typical problem that modern England has in viewing its colonial heritage. On the one hand, it simply has to acknowledge the dirt, disease, discrimination and general chaos of modern India. On the other, it is faintly embarrassed of this disapproval given its own guilt regarding the Raj, and still has a deep-seated love of the country whose culture, language and cooking have so influenced the home nations. The result is a depiction of India that is at once patronising and awe-struck.  India is the country of spiritual revelation and ancient wisdom.  But it is also depicted as a country of almost child-like innocents who believe in happy endings, ideally set to a musical number.  This absurd juxtaposition is best summed up in the movie SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE - marketed as a "feelgood movie" despite scenes of child beggars deliberately blinded, capped off with the obligatory song-and-dance number straight after a scene where the hero's brother has shot himself.  

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL isn't quite as crass as SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. And indeed, in one storyline, we see a reconciliation between ruler and ruled played out as a reconciliation between two homosexual lovers - one a colonial, one an Indian. That at least shows some self-awareness on the part of the film-makers, although it falls far short of the kind of self-examination seen in the novels of E.M.Forster.  But at the end of the day, this is just another movie in which India is a colourful, exoticised backdrop against which pampered Westerners can gain "self-knowledge".  There's no real concern with what life there is really like. And the self-knowledge is easily gained - in the case of Maggie Smith's character, the personality alteration so swift as to beggar belief. 

Still, as I said, the movie is a surprisingly pleasant watch, mainly because it's cast is top-notch and charming, partly because where the movie is on "home soil" it is actually quite insightful.  In other words, when focusing on the disappointments of old age, the movie actually has interesting things to say about the way in which the middle classes are seeing their pension income eroded - their healthcare costs increase - the shock to discover the welfare state and corporate pension simply aren't enough - the indignity of realising one's sex life might be over - the desperation of knowing that the chances to turn one's life around are limited, if they exist at all.

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL is on release in the UK and Ireland. It opens on March 15th in Germany; on March 22nd in Australia; Norway, the Netherlands,  New Zealand, Russia, Estonia, Finland, Spain and Sweden; on March 28th in Belgium; on March 20th in Italy and Lithuania; on April 12th in Portugal; on May 4th in India and the USA; on May 9th in France; on May 11th in Brazil; on May 17th in Hong Kong and Singapore; and on May 24th in Argentina.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER

It has become fashionable for critics to patronise Woody Allen, a director who, apart from the odd freak hit such as VICKY, CHRISTINA, BARCELONA, hasn't produced a run of sustained hits since the late 1980s. He has been accused of cannibalising his back catalogue; producing dramas of diminishing quality; and for focusing his attention on an idea of the upper middle-class intellectual elite that is both anachronistic and irrelevant to modern life. Woody Allen has thus been condemned as a parody of himself. An old man who should do his reputation a favour and just retire. This view seems to be shared by the distributors. Outside of the Woody Allen-loving Parisians (and let's face it - they thought Jerry Lewis was a genius) most Woody Allen films receive a limited theatrical release or just go straight to video.

Still, for those of us who obsessively watched, loved and were provoked by his back catalogue, particularly the greats from the late 70s and 80s, a new Woody Allen film is hard to pass up. And when you get a movie based in your home town, starring actors of the calibre of Gemma Jones, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and the criminally under-used Lucy Punch, expectations are higher than the critics would allow.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER is about the things that Woody Allen films are always about - the big questions of modern life. How far are we willing to delude ourselves into believing in love? How far are we willing to compromise our morals to achieve success? How crazy will we become to avoid admitting our mortality? If the first question was best explored in ANNIE HALL, and the second and third in CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS, what does YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER add?

Precious little. The mood is perhaps even more cynical and nihilistic. The location different. But the material is undoubtedly rehashed not to mention the use of characters such as brassy hookers (DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, MIGHT APHRODITE) and men who are willing to murder and steal to get ahead (CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, MATCH POINT) let alone the idea of justice hanging on the throw of a dice or the fall of a coin (MATCH POINT). Humanity is portrayed as fickle, callow, self-serving and self-obsessed - life is a pathetic game of self-delusion - a desperate bid to outrun the inevitable. Woody Allen's characters may live in beautiful houses but they are rarely happy, and if they are, he mocks them for being idiots.

Having said all that, I still thoroughly enjoyed YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER for the simple pleasure of watching those familiar themes refracted through a new set of characters and a new set of actors. Because I didn't have to concentrate on surprises in the plot or thematic material - because I knew how the relationships would pan out from the start - I could simply luxuriate in the wonderful performances and three or four superb dramatic set-pieces that hold their own against any of Woody Allen's finer movies.

The first of those scenes is wonderful tragicomedy. Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) is an old man who doesn't want to admit that his life is nearing its end. He dumps his wife Helena (Gemma Jones) and bankrupts himself dating a money-grabbing hooker (Lucy Punch). Woody Allen skewers Alfie's vanity in a marvellous scene in which they sit in a sterile penthouse flat. She is draped on a fur coat she has just extorted for him, and he is waiting for his viagra to kick in, "Three more minutes..." Pathetic, beautifully observed, hilarious!

The second scene features Alfie's ex-wife Helena and their daughter Sally (Naomi Watts). Sally has married a failed author (Josh Brolin) and desperately needs her mother's money to start a new art gallery, but her mother has been wasting it on seeing a psychic who tells her she will meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and even worse, advises Helena not to give Sally money. The scene is wonderful because, as in life, you have two people who are related but who are in such different emotional and intellectual places that they simply cannot communicate. Helena comes across as smug, deluded and selfish in her manufactured happiness. Sally comes across as justifiably frustrated but also entitled and spoiled. It's beautifully acted and also tragic that this mother and daughter are unable to understand each other's needs.

The third scene features the wonderful Josh Brolin, schlubbed up as the failed writer Roy, so pissed off at his wife Sally's constant nagging for a baby that he has an affair with a pretty young woman (Freida Pinto) and so desperate for success that he steals an unpublished novel. There is a marvellous scene where he realises that he may well be busted and that look on his face - simply that - is worth the price of admission alone!

So, what can I say? YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER doesn't tell you anything you didn't know about Woody Allen's misanthropic world-view.  I don't need to see another brash hooker, and Freida Pinto certainly cannot hold her own among this cast-list. But, for all that, I enjoyed almost every minute, and certain scenes will stay with me as much as anything in Woody Allen's earlier work.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER played Cannes and Toronto 2010 and opened last year in Spain, the USA, Canada, France, Belgium, Israel, Greece, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Estonia and Uruguay. It opened earlier this year in Mexico, Portugal, Romania, Argentina, Kazakhstan and Russia. It is currently on release in Poland and the UK.

ST TRINIAN'S 2: THE LEGEND OF FRITTON'S GOLD - too few genuine laughs

I rather liked the 2007 St Trinian's remake. It was cheeky, rather fun, but in a rather charmingly lo-rent way. Rupert Everett dressing up in drag to play Camilla Fritton, headmistress of the most anarchic school in England, was a fun antidote to all those airbrushed teen-rom-com flicks starring Amanda Bynes and Emma Roberts. I liked the visual humour and Colin Firth sending up his Mr Darcy image.

So it was with some anticipation that I watched the sequel, ST TRINIAN'S 2: THE LEGEND OF FRITTON'S GOLD. The story is rather clever in that it build's on St Trinian's anarcho-feminism. It turns out that an ancestor of headmistress Camilla Fritton (Everett) and new head girl Anabelle Fritton (Talulah Riley) was a swashbuckling pirate who hijacked gold from Lord Pomfrey - an anti-feminist who was going to use the loot to dethrone Elizabeth I. In the present day, Piers Pomfrey (David Tennant) is trying to steal the treasure back. The girls have to follow clues to London, find the gold and defeat the scoundrelous enemy, with the help of old head girl (Gemma Arterton) and Camilla's love-interest Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth).

The film succeeds in some of the same ways as the original. There is a lot of visual humour around the production design of the school, and a certain lo-rent charm to the way it's been put together. Unfortunately, it does not have the verbal wit of the original. Indeed, there are very few genuinely laugh-out loud moments. The film misses Gemma Arterton in a starring role, and didn't really use Girls Aloud's Sarah Harding in a sensible manner. I know that most of the actresses are passed their school days, but Sarah Harding strains credibility as a current school girl - surely she would have been better used as a returning old head girl? In general, I feel the film might have benefited from spending more time at school, generating humour from the absurdities of a St Trinian's education, and less time chasing for gold in London. Ultimately, it just doesn't work.

ST TRINIANS 2: THE LEGEND OF FRITTON'S GOLD is on release in the UK.