Plot
British retirees travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel. Less luxurious than its advertisements, the Marigold Hotel nevertheless slowly begins to charm in unexpected ways.

Release Year: 2011

Rating: 7.5/10 (3,950 voted)

Critic's Score: 61/100

Director: John Madden

Stars: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith

Storyline
A group of British retirees decide to "outsource" their retirement to less expensive and seemingly exotic India. Enticed by advertisements for the newly restored Marigold Hotel, they arrive to find the palace a shell of its former self.

Writers: Ol Parker, Deborah Moggach

Cast:
Judi Dench - Evelyn Greenslade
Tom Wilkinson - Graham Dashwood
Patrick Pearson - Graham's Colleague
Hugh Dickson - Judge
Bill Nighy - Douglas Ainslie
James Rawlings - Estate Agent
Paul Bhattacharjee - Dr. Ghujarapartidar
Penelope Wilton - Jean Ainslie
Maggie Smith - Muriel Donnelly
Liza Tarbuck - Staff Nurse
Lucy Robinson - Judith
Ronald Pickup - Norman Cousins
Celia Imrie - Madge Hardcastle
Simon Wilson - Madge's Son-in-Law
Sara Stewart - Madge's Daughter

Details

Official Website: Official site | Official site [Spain] |

Release Date: 4 May 2012

Filming Locations: India

Opening Weekend: £2,222,051 (UK) (26 February 2012) (504 Screens)

Gross: £15,674,349 (UK) (25 March 2012)

Technical Specs

Runtime: 124 min

Did You Know?

Trivia:
Tom Wilkinson's character is called Graham Dashwood. Tom Wilkinson played Mr Dashwood in the 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility.

Goofs:
Factual errors: When they arrive in India, their flight to Jaipur is canceled because of bad weather. Such a thing may only occur during Monsoon (from June till September), but if that were the case there should have been bad weather each day, something that could not pass unmentioned.

Quotes:
Orderly: My wife is from Mumbai.
Muriel: Well don't blame me, you married her!

User Review

Two Important Don'ts: DON'T miss this movie, and DON'T believe the critics

Rating: 10/10

I agree heartily with all the reviewers here (except "disappointed") because this is a GREAT BRITSH FILM for which the critics have not given hardly enough credit. I am glad I didn't listen to their "disappointment" and went to see it anyway. Sometimes it is critics that are the disappointment! The acting was tremendous. The setting of India was beautiful and perfect. The theatre was full and as most people have already said here, everyone was laughing out loud. It was like a great and funny and cleansing session at a cinema/therapist,that just washed over you, so touching were all the emotions and insights, so real to life ,you could not believe they were acting.

I read one newspaper critic who said the characters didn't have enough depth. Well, no, it was a two hour movie, silly, and what you got was a vignette of 7 real lives, each of them facing the reality of old age in their own way.

How wonderful to have a real movie about real issues that addresses them with humour and leaves you feeling uplifted. And how refreshing to have a film by and for the mature and senior members of society. To me the whole idea and effect of this movie is to fly in the face of the Western idea we have of old age somehow being something pitiful, to be feared, and if possible, to be glossed over, fixed up and avoided, so you can remain as young, powerful and appealing to your very last day, as possible.The movie opens up all these ideas to question and I am sure left many, like me, pondering. Why are over 60's in this country called Old Age Pensioners, when no self-respecting American would allow that? They are "Senior" Citizens over there(note the difference). Why don't we look after and respect our elders? Why does the extended family work perfectly well in countries like Italy, Spain, Greece, India, but is a rarity here? And who is responsible for ignoring or marginalizing a whole generation of baby boomers who lived through and oversaw one of the biggest transformations in society ever? They were the generation that believed in a Brave New World, and many of them still do.

A society that doesn't value the wisdom and experience of its elders is without foundation.Young and old,"every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the whole". Go and see this movie and think about it. And take your family. Great stuff.