I quite enjoyed this, but it's not so much a movie as an excellent pilot for a series... or it deserves to be. Too many characters, with too many storylines, in too short a time. It's adapted from a Novel, which I imagine has much more room to breathe.
On the strong side of things, there are the wonderful performances of a stellar cast at the top of their game. At this point, I believe that it is impossible for Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, or Tom Wilkenson to turn in a less than mesmerizing performance. On the weak side of things are plots that telegraph their endings so blatantly, that it's not a matter of knowing what is going to happen but hoping that the route to the inevitable is somewhat interesting.
Fortunately, it is.
Let's break these down one plot at a time.
Judi Dench is a widow whose husband took care of everything, and now that he's gone no one believes that she can take care of herself. Within the first few scenes we know that this is going to be a life affirming journey in which she will find that she is resourceful and resilient and come to some important understandings about being her own person. What makes her story really work is her role as cultural advisor to a call center. Her scene with the phone jockeys, teaching them to ignore scripts and relate to people as ... well ... people is an absolute joy. There is no judgement that the ultimate goal is to sell people something, but rather to recognize that they are reaching out to human beings and not just sales targets. She brings some humanity to an extremely impersonal business.
Tom Wilkinson's story is the most compelling, and it is the least telegraphed. All we know at first is that he's not looking forward to retirement, then in the midst of a farewell speech... he declares that this is the day and walks out. We learn that he lived in India 40 years ago, and he's clearly trying to reconnect with something, but the details are doled out bit by bit, slowly revealing a complex and sorrowful man. Time constraints cut short some potentially wonderful scenes, such as the off camera discussion between Evelyn (Dench) and the wife of Graham's (Wikinson) old companion. Had this been a series, the end of this story line would have been a season closer, or a devestating mid-season shake up.
Bill Nighe and Penelope Wilton give us the Ainslies. She's status obsessed and he's browbeaten. He sees life and beauty and all she can see is poverty and loss. These characters really needed their own movie. Wilton is a master at being utterly horrible while also being profoundly sympathetic. Everything that comes out of her mouth is just wrong, but you can clearly see where it is coming from. You see the pain behind that smile, the desperation in her voice, the need and fear that run through her. When the crux of her crisis comes, it's heartbreaking. Indeed, her story bucks convention the most. We expect her to realize her shallow outlook, and release her negativity... but that isn't who she is. She cannot, and will not thrive in this place and her exit feels utterly true to who she is. No one will be rooting for her character, but the world is not populated with saints.
Nighe is not exactly a saint, although his character is clearly a martyr. We wait for him to stand up to his wife, to help her see the world around them the way he clearly does... and he sort of does that. In the end however, he is who he is. His wife says not to follow her to the airport... but he does. He's too late, but it's one last perfunctory act of loyalty, as deeply ingrained in him as his knife slash mouth. I wish we could have followed him into India, seen the places he was going, experienced the city through his eyes. Even more, I wish we could have seen more of him and his wife being real with one another. There is a history and a relationship there that could have made their ending much more striking, as opposed to kind of a relief.
Maggie Smith is one of the few people who can make a racist shrew enjoyable to watch. This is another plot whose end seemed inevitable from the beginning. Old woman who is loudly and unashamedly racist will end up in India and discover that brown people are not very different from her and become a warm and new person. What makes her story remotely interesting is, well... it's Maggie Smith... and understanding what is behind her racism, and her bitterness. Her interaction with the woman, once of the untouchable caste, is such a stark reminder of her own status in Britain as a house servant, of how she was tossed aside, of how the love and devotion she gave to her family was treated as just a business relationship by them... it's heartbreaking. Muriel (Smith) has been treated as nothing and nobody by those she cared for, by those she sacrificed for, and so her bitterness and venom gets turned on those she can see as beneath her. Race is such an easy marker for people to use when looking for a target.
This story offered one of the most poignant moments of the film, when the interpreter tells Muriel that the girl wants to thank her for her kindness, and Muriel... shocked... replies "I haven't been kind to her." As she says those words, you get the sense that she hears them herself for the first time. How often do we face that kind of self-confession.... that we haven't been kind to others... and for no good reason?
If if seems like this is a lot of plot threads, it's not over yet. We also have the barely existing storylines of Norman (Ronald Pickup) and Madge (Celia Imrie). These are characters who could have actually been dropped from the film for all that they are used here. Norman wants to revitalize himself with a younger woman... and he does. Madge wants to revitalize herself with a husband... and she doesn't (but kind of is on her way in the closing montage). The only real surprises here were that they didn't end up with one another. Again, their relationship had such potential, and in a series format so much more could have been done. They feel like characters who had a lot going on in the book, but here are just filling out the ensemble. This is by no means the fault of the Pickup and Imrie, who take what little they are given and run with it. It's just too much in too small a time frame.
Indeed, more justice could have been given to them by shrinking down the story of Sonny (Dev Patel) and Sunaina (Tena Desae). Sonny as the overly optimistic and hyperactive hotel manager is excellent, and Suniana is quite lovely... but we really didn't need an "overbearing mother who doesn't approve of her son's life choices and this girl who he wants to marry" storyline here. We could have had Sonny's story, and the danger of losing the hotel, and the timely rescue plot without the threat of family bit. The time could have been better used fleshing out some of the other storylines. And the old man speech that suddenly makes the mother remember her own history... I mean, come on. Seriously?
I'm complaining a lot here, but mostly because there was so much good here, such good characters, such an amazing cast, so much potential... but turning it into a movie was a mistake. As a BBC series, it could have had the room to breathe, stories could have gotten the depth of treatment they deserved, and we could have seen more of India than the "third world" decay and squalor.
Such a nice film, but such a missed opportunity.
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