The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - A Review

4.5 Stars - very, very funny

so, M, Davy Jones, Carmine Falcone, Professor McGonagall, Harriet Jones,  Aslan, Philippa from dinnerladies and The Slumdog Millionaire all live in a hotel in India together... hilarity ensues

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel brings together a wonderful group of character actors for a very funny and very touching film.

The core cast in this film are magnificent, and I want to talk about them all.

Judi Dench is simply lovely in this, really capturing the role and making it very easy to relate to, making you feel sad when bad things happened to her and happy when good things did.

Bill Nighy gives a somewhat more subtle performance than he often does, making for a wonderful downtrodden husband blooming and gaining confidence from the new life he finds himself in, leading to an especially good scene where he finally confronts his wife about their problems.

Tom Wilkinson slides quietly along underneath everyone else's performances making for a very touching and heartfelt performance that you almost don't realise till near the end is one of the best performances you'll see for a long time.

Maggie Smith absolutely steals the film, playing a real departure to the usual fairly nanny-ish Scottish woman I've always seen her playing. She plays a splendidly funny racist woman, and nearly everything she says is enough to crack me up. (Note: racism is bad, but if gentle enough can be funny)

Penelope Wilton plays Bill Nighy's dominating wife. She is probably the least interesting character in the film, but even then she still plays her part very well and makes for some great emotional scenes.

Ronald Pickup plays a sex crazed pervy old man. He is another character who is funny in almost every scene he's in, getting quite possibly the best line in the film. "if she dies, she dies"

Celia Imrie is as confident and charismatic as ever, making for a very enjoyably funny character.

Dev Patel plays the owner of the hotel who's trying to stop the place from falling apart, and to convince his mother to let him marry his girlfriend. He gives the part a lot of energy and makes for a lot of fun.

The film has several little glimpses into the Indian culture and whilst at times it can seem a little glossed over, what you do get is very nice.

So to sum up, this film is definately worth seeing, very funny