But, of course, we should be thankful for the seven we have, and also for their junior colleagues in the movie, including the actor, Dev Patel, who plays their much younger host, the burblingly enthusiastic and self-deceiving Sonny Kapoor. Sonny owns the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (inherited from his father), and he also manages it, has prepared the glowing advertising — and has, shall we say, exaggerated. Compared to most luxury hotels, the Exotic is a little seedy, and, thanks to Sonny, not particularly well-run — though I’ve got to admit, with its classic Satyajit-Ray-film décor, it looked great to me.

Patel’s face will be familiar; he played the contestant on Slumdog Millionaire. Perhaps he was a bit intimidated by his fellow actors here — as well he should be — because he tends to overplay a little. Not too much, but it’s noticeable when you compare him with his older British castmates – with such masters of subtlety and insight as Wilkinson and Dench, such a grande dame of stylish wit as Maggie Smith (here doing to the servant class, what she usually does to the rich), and such a wizard of the odd and offbeat as Nighy — as well as such sturdy artists of emotion or humor as Pickup, Imre and Wilton.

The seven guests are the key to the tale, and they’re the reason to watch the film. Madden and Parker devote some time to Sonny’s problems with his lovely fiancee, Suneina (Tena Desae), and with his stubborn mother (Lillete Dubey), crises that include both the travails of hotel management and of potential marrriage in a society with a tradition of arranged marriages. But mostly what we follow — and what we’re primarily interested in — are the star guests.

The most poignant turn belongs to Wilkerson as Graham, portraying, with great restraint and keen perception, a gay man at the end of his life trying to re-connect with the Indian friend who was the love of his life, whom he hasn’t seen since youth, and whom he believes he permanently wronged. The most likeable guest is Dench as Evelyn, beguilingly showing us the difficulties of  adjusting to life without the person (her late husband) who shaped and ordered her routines. The funniest is Smith. A genius of timing as always, she starts off the movie as an outspoken bigot, and undergoes that gratifying change of heart we see often enough in movies and too seldom in life.

Imre and Pickup, as Madge and Norman, show us that sex springs eternal — and Nighy and Wilton, as the incompatible Ainslies, show us that rotten marriages do as well. It’s a delight watching all of them. The direction by Madden — who gave Judi Dench one of her finest hours, and also her finest ten minutes, in Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love — keeps the film’s gentler and more languorous pace humming and the comedy and drama smoothly interwoven. If there’s a problem with the film, it’s in the script, which is a bit too pat, a bit too brisk . Things happen, we feel, not because they inevitably would happen to those people in that place, but because we expect them in a story like this.

SPOILER ALERT

Arguments flare up at the right moment; problems are solved with implausible inevitability; people even die on schedule. The script, while good in some respects, lacks the sort of life (or theatrical life) that all films need and that the best actors, the brdt Brits particularly, always supply, and that they supply here.

END OF ALERT

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is still an often admirable show, and it’s especially laudable in its ambition to show us the kind of people too often marginalized in our own movies: old people, who often love movies and usually have time to watch them, yet remain a market unwisely untapped. That market is well-mined well here, by England‘s main resource, some of its glorious actors. So The Exotic Hotel is good, but it could have been better.

Oh well, Life could be better. And, come to think of it, there’s nothing wrong with a nice little comedy-drama.

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