When you think about the worst kinds of sequels – the lazy ones, the ones that just get the gang back together to do more “stuff,” never mind what that “stuff” actually is – I think it is perfectly normal to wince. Because usually, these are the sequels that are have no point whatsoever except to make money. For example, take The Hangover Part II and The Hangover Part III. Please, take them. I beg of you.
And yet The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel escapes the clutches of inconsequence by doing that very same thing: just getting the gang back together, and just to do more stuff. You might think that it gets away with this because the cast is full of absolute charmers, and you’d be partly right, but only partly. For once, the fact that there are more adventures to be had at all is the whole point, in and of itself.
The first Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a perfectly decent, wholly likable piece of fluff, about a group of elderly Brits who travel to India because A) the cost of living is too high at home, B) it’s just plain nice there, and most importantly C) they want to feel alive again. Not young, but alive. In a social system that seems unfairly designed to ostracize and belittle everyone over the age of 55, the opportunity for a fresh new beginning was just too good for the characters to pass up.
But that story about fresh new beginnings had to end, and endings aren’t what The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was about. The Best Exotic Marigold hotel is about how there is always more to be done, and more to experience. So the fact that The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is just a little bit more story, a few more slices of this thing called life, is exactly what this particular sequel called for. This sequel’s very existence is a reminder that life goes on – and stays sexy, silly, dramatic and fun – long after everyone else tells you that the best times are over.
That other part of why The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel works – that the cast is full of absolute charmers – is still an important one. Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Dev Patel and Ronald Pickup haven’t lost their touch, bringing humor and romance and a fair share of pathos to all of their stories, which just like before are often very twee but usually grounded in emotional honesty.
Dench and Nighy still haven’t admitted that they love each other, but you know they’ll probably get around to it. Maggie Smith is trying to keep Dev Patel from sabotaging his own hotel, and his fast approaching wedding day. Celia Imrie is torn between two lovers and Ronald Pickup, in easily The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’s most contrived shenanigan, has accidentally put a hit out on his girlfriend, played by Diana Hardcastle.
Meanwhile there’s a plan afoot to expand to a second hotel, and Richard Gere arrives playing the guy who is obviously not a hotel inspector but Dev Patel assumes he is. I use the actors’ names instead of the characters’ names because it doesn’t really matter. You’re just here to see wonderful older actors do stuff, and stuff that other films won’t allow them to do, like take part in car chases, fall in love and have tons of sex.
And that, by itself, when produced as effortlessly and with as much personality as The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is more than enough. It may not be as good as the first one, but the title already gives that away. What matters is that there is more of it, and it is still enjoyable. That’s the function, and that’s the theme, and that’s perfectly fine.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
