Filmiholic : Meri duniya - bilkul filmi

When the trailer for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel started appearing in Manhattan cinemas last autumn, I was struck by how many laughs it got and figured, given its golden cast, that it would be a success, but I was also curious to see how – a few years on since Slumdog Millionaire – another film about India by a British director would be received beyond the shores of the US and UK.  (The film releases in India a fortnight from now.)

The opening scenes in England telegraph the situations of the principals: Dame Judy Dench as Evelyn Greenslade, widowed and suddenly bankrupt,  Penelope Wilton and Bill Nighy as Jean and Douglas Ainslie, financially strapped and depressed by how small a retirement home their “grey pound” will buy, Tom Wilkinson as Graham Dashwood, restless and having just made a snap decision to retire, Dame Maggie Smith as Muriel Donnelly, racist, retired working class pensioner facing a six-month wait in the British healthcare system for a new hip, and Celia Imrie and the appropriately named Ronald Pickup as Madge Hardcastle and Norman Cousins, two unrelated people both looking for some romance.  Once all those storylines have been briskly established, we’re off to India.

Judy Dench and Celia Imrie

Director John Madden, best known for the Oscar winner Shakespeare in Love, strikes the right note in how he chooses to represent India to his audience.  In a somewhat contrived plot point (the cancellation of their onward flight to Jaipur), the group is suddenly thrust out of the cool shiny cocoon of Delhi airport’s new terminal and into The Real India.  (They couldn’t have waited for the next flight?)  Led by Graham (Tom Wilkinson), they make their way onto a bus and then various “tuktuks” to the hotel.

(I know this will seem picky, but I thought that term was used in Thailand; “autorickshaw” or “auto” are what I’ve always heard during my time in India, but maybe this is some south – north nuance I’ve yet to learn…)

Through the septet’s eyes we see the throngs of people and the traffic, and all that is so fascinating to us foreigners as we navigate the streets of any Indian city or town: the quotidian sights of a family of four (or more!) heading to work and school on a motorbike, the horse-drawn (or camel-drawn) cart merging into the fray, women in vibrant-hued saris and salwar kameez, and the multiple, simultaneous vignettes happening all around.  On my first few times in Madras and Bombay I was forever shooting long stretches of film as the driver took me from point A to point B, trying – futilely – to capture all that was going on.

When the group arrives at the hotel Dev Patel comes scampering breathlessly across the rooftops to greet them.  Like his new guests he too is striking out to try something new and risky – in his case, making a go of running a business at this shambolic hotel he inherited, which he believes will garner him enough credibility with his mother (the wonderful Lilette Dubey) to be able to then seek her approval of his Muslim, middle class girlfriend Sunaina (Tena Desae).

Tena Desae and Dev Patel

“I want the hotel in the brochure,” Penelope Wilton’s Mrs. Ainslie demands of Patel, noting the difference between the images she saw online in England and the reality before her eyes, but to no avail.  Some of the residents embrace their new home early on, others warm more slowly to India, but for Wilton’s character, each day makes her that much more brittle and depressed.  Her husband (Nighy) on the other hand, sallies forth to explore every day with those jaunty movements that fans of the actor will recall from him hilarious portrayal of an aging rocker in Love Actually.  Meanwhile Evelyn has taken to blogging about her experiences, which serves as running monologue of the group’s progress and adaptation.

Graham, the high court judge (the only character not present in Deborah Moggach’s novel These Foolish Things, on which the film is based) is the only one of the group with any prior experience of India, and no sooner do they arrive in Rajasthan, than he’s off every day on some secret mission, much to the puzzlement of his neighbors.  As the ice melts among the seven, he chooses to reveal to Evelyn (Judy Dench) and Douglas (Bill Nighy) what it is that has been haunting him since his youth there.

Judy Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Bill Nighy (L-R)

Maggie Smith’s Muriel is shocking in her blatant zenophobia (watching an Afro-English doctor rinsing his hands in the hospital in London she says to a nurse “He can wash all he wants, that black’s not coming off”), and she tries to carry all she can from home (Hobnob biscuits, and in a perfect Newcastle coals turn, tea and pickle) so she can avoid eating Indian food while she convalesces from her surgery.  Quite far into the story we learn she has more in common with one of the servants than she, or we, might have expected.

The two romantically inclined members of the group, Madge and Norman, bring a sunny determination to their pursuits, and forge on ahead, not allowing the march of time to get them down.  Which actually sums up nicely the mantra of the film: it’s never too late to try something new and take a chance.

Without being patronizing, Madden gives us a humorous and affectionate look at the lives of these seven people “in their golden years”, and how they deal with the problems they are facing.  Given the excess of films geared to a much younger demographic, I suppose it was a rather daring move on his part, even with the famous cast, though I shouldn’t underestimate the halo effect of having two cast members from Downton Abbey onboard.

See it or skip it?

See it!  This charming film has warmth and heart and leaves you with hope.  It’s what I would classify as a perfect “Sunday night movie” – that is, nothing that is too bleak or morose to see before the start of the work week, quite the contrary.

I look forward to watching it again.  Given what a great raconteur John Madden is, I do hope he and at least some of the cast members will do a commentary track for the DVD.

And to judge by the comments from journos at the recent meet-and-greet in NYC with the cast (more on that next), I suspect BEMH will fare better than Slumdog Millionaire when it lands in the subcontinent.  As one Indian woman opined to a non-Indian man “Slumdog exploited the poverty in India, this film doesn’t do that.”

I had some qualms going in to see Ekk Deewana Tha (How would Prateik do?  How would they explain the presence of the young English rose, Amy Jackson?  How would AR Rahman’s gorgeous, dreamy title song fare in its Hindi reincarnation?) but I put them aside when the lights went down in the theater, and tried to push the memories of the Tamil version to the back of mind.

The good news (sort of) is that I found Prateik more convincing as a young, head-over-heels romantic lead than his Tamil counterpart (Simbu just looked too spaced out as he clung to that front gate and kept fussing with his hair), though I can’t imagine who in urban, middle class India wants to get married in their early 20s nowadays.

But, oh my, the main problem I had with the Tamil Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa came back to me as EDT progressed: how and why is it that this guy becomes so obsessively smitten with Jessie (Amy Jackson) ?  Yes, yes, I know, love at first sight, coup de foudre and all that, but we’re never shown anything beyond their physical attraction to each other (and don’t get me wrong, both are beautiful) to justify any faith in these two making a go of it as husband and wife in the long term, especially after clambering over all the parental obstacles in front of them.  We never see any meaningful glimpses of the personalities of Sachin and Jessie (beyond the fact the he wants to make films and she likes maths) to endear them to each other, never mind us.

This important missing core of the story is the crippling flaw of the film.  I just didn’t see why I should care if these two good-looking kids end up together.  Again, they are good-looking….Prateik oozes doe-eyed innocence and vulnerability, but after being the ingénue in Dhobi Ghat and Dum Maaro Dum, and now here too, one can only hope that he plays a cold-hearted killer in his next release, or he’s going to be typecast well into his 30s as a swooning college boy, which would be a pity, because his performance in Dhobi Ghat showed he’s capable of so much more.

Amy Jackson’s Jessie is revealed early on as a Malayali Christian girl, but I don’t understand director Gautham Menon’s thinking behind that casting choice (as opposed to giving her one non-Indian parent), but of course that then would torpedo the central premise as to what’s keeping them apart (her father is strict, orthodox and has already “lost” one daughter to a mixed marriage).  It seems like a lot to expect of a young foreign girl who is still just getting her feet wet as an actor and that, in an industry whose language and conventions are not her own.  I do give her credit for spending a good chunk of the film gamboling about in saris, which I would imagine takes some getting used to for a newbie who’s never worn one before.

But the story is as weak as a premature kitten with the flu lost in blizzard…. Boy sees girl, boy falls in love, boy pursues girl to the point of stalking, girl shows no interest then turns on a dime and is supposedly suddenly in love too (though we don’t really see or feel it)…and on and on.  The ending of the Tamil film was certainly not one that I had expected, and I’d read that the Hindi version would not repeat it, so I was curious to see how Menon would resolve the will-they-or-won’t-they question, and all I’ll say here is “Meh.”  Well, that and I think the film might have been more tolerable had it been some 30 or 40 minutes shorter.  The conclusion just dragged on way too long.

Oh, and a few words about the music.  First, the rap number was awkward to the point of painful.  Poor Prateik made to wear a silly fedora and second to have to mouth those lyrics AND hoof it up at the same time.  My toes curl just recalling it.  And second, how, how, HOW did Gautham Menon arrive at the decision to lop off the most beautiful song of his Tamil version (the airy title number) and just relegate it to mere background music right before the interval?  What a shame and a big mistake.

See it or skip it?

Unless you’re obsessed with Prateik, or Amy Jackson, then walk on.  There are some lovely Kerala locations, which should do quite a bit toward inspiring people to head south for a visit, but I don’t think that alone is worth the price of admission.  It’s a pity – I was hoping for more.