The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I had planned to go to the movie ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ at our local theatre. I don’t go to many movies, so this was an event I was looking forward to. But some friends decided on a spur-of-the-moment to see the British comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and invited me to join them. I hadn’t heard about the movie but I immediately said yes because I love spending time with these friends and besides who could resist a title like that?

Even though a popcorn and drink is a necessary part of the movie event for me and we were too full from the meal we’d just shared to have either, I did not even notice. The film is adorable and engaged me from the first.

We got to the theatre a bit later than we’d planned. I needed a potty break so asked the other three to find a seat. When I found them, two of our group were sitting in seats that looked perfect. On an aisle toward the back. They had left two seats between them for me and another friend. But the other friend was sitting one row back and they all seemed to be having a discussion. I immediately caught the problem. In the next row down in the second seat from the aisle sat a tall man with a big head (they always are, aren’t they?). I joined my friend one row back in the only two seats available – which just happened to fall behind the two vacant seats left for us. We could see the screen perfectly. Thus we began our adventure on a comic note – and the notes only got better and better.

We first meet seven strangers of a certain age through a montage of enticing travel brochures and online marketing. It is clear these seven are all primed for an adventure to transport them from their everyday lives. They book passage to India to spend their golden years as the first residents of the enthusiastically named Best Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful.

Of course they arrive to a hotel that is nothing like the depictions in the promotional material. But the ‘director’ of the hotel, a young man with a dream played brilliantly by Dev Patel, assures them with his favourite mantra, that ‘everything will be all right in the end. If it is not all right, then it is not yet the end’.

Like India, the movie is a romp through brightly beautiful scenes that are almost stagey, and lives that are in shambles. We laugh, we cry, we are enchanted.

The characters are indeed ‘elderly and beautiful’. Despite their numbers and the limited time we have with each, we get to know their stories deeply enough to satisfy. Perhaps that is due to the skill of the screenwriter; certainly much credit must go to the stellar British cast: Judy Dench, Bill Nighy (especially delightful in this role), Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie and the aforementioned Dev Patel.

The movie is based on the novel ‘These Foolish Things’ by British author Deborah Moggach. Normally I would prefer to read the book before watching the movie but in this case I had no time, which perhaps is just as well, as apparently the book is not that closely followed for the film. I am certain the book will find me one of these days and I shall be delighted to read it.

Marigold Hotel is a coming of age story for those who feel past their prime, with the fear of the future angst common to those of a more youthful age. It is about hope and anxiety and finding love and a place in the world. But it has one quality not in common with the latter group – the possibility of an endearing renewal of a spirit grown weary.

The other day I was having lunch with a couple from out of town who were as enamoured with the movie as we were. The male half of the couple, a Brit, mentioned he would like to see a sequel made. Now, that’s as good an endorsement as a movie is likely to get. We need more of these kinds of films. For the better part of two hours one was able to shed the cares of the world with sustained laughter, a feast for the senses and nourishment for the soul.

I highly recommend this movie to individuals of all ages. It is not an easy feat, but the film manages to convey a profound message in a laugh-out-loud way. Sonny turns out to be right: Everything will be all right in the end, so if it is not all right then it is not yet…

THE END…

A Winning Show

Confession time.  I’ve been watching the TV show called “The Voice” on NBC.  I don’t normally watch either reality shows or any of the current competition-style shows.  The “win at any cost” attitude and the judgmental negativity reflected in them doesn’t appeal to me at all.  So unless I’m channel-flipping and see a performance that catches my attention, I stay far, far away from them.

However, last year I accidentally stumbled across Beverly McClellan performing “I’m the Only One.”  Not only was her singing pretty darn impressive, but she didn’t look like teenage pop star.  Then after she finished, the four “coaches” (not judges!!!) said really nice things about her singing.  Okay, I thought, I can watch this for a while.  I ended up watching the rest of the first season of “The Voice.”

I was still leery about the show because all the competitive talent shows do tend to be more positive once they winnow out the bad acts.  But it seemed worth giving this show a chance, so this year I started watching it from the beginning.  And I’m happy to report that I’ve enjoyed it so far.

The entire format seems to be set up to accentuate the positive.  For instance, there are no bad performances when they have the initial auditions to select the contestants.  Hooray!  I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in spending my time watching bad acts. (Isn’t that what YouTube is for?)  And having all good performances means there are no humiliating boos from the audience or nasty, mean-spirited comments from the judges.  Another great thing about “The Voice” auditions is that the four coaches have their backs to the singers, so the initial selection is based strictly on the singer’s voice and not on appearance. 

The four coaches (Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton) are all nice to the contestants and to each other.  The balance and variety in the show comes from their different music styles, not from opposite/conflicting personalities.  There is some rivalry between them because they all want the best contestants on their team and they also want one of the members on their team to win, but it’s a friendly rivalry which conveys both liking and respect for the other coaches.

There are three phases to the competition.  In the blind auditions, the coaches are each trying to get twelve singers on their team.  If more than one coach chooses a singer, then the tables are turned and the singer gets to pick which team they want to be on.  I really liked that part.  The blind auditions ran for five episodes and almost all of the singers were picked by at least one coach.  There were just enough singers who weren’t picked to maintain a degree of uncertainty without losing the positive focus of the show.  Not only that, it was obvious that the coaches felt really bad when someone didn’t get picked, and they tried to say something useful and encouraging to that singer.

The second phase, called The Battle Rounds, was just completed this week.  During these four episodes, the coaches had to cut their teams in half, going from twelve members down to six.  Each coach chose two members of their team for a head-to-head competition.  The two singers were given a song to perform together as a duet, but each had their own personal “celebrity advisor” (Lionel Richie, Kelly Clarkson, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Jewel, Miranda Lambert, Alanis Morissette, Ne-Yo, or Robin Thicke) assigned to them to help bring out their best performance.  After the duet, their coach then had to choose which singer would move on to the third phase.

The battle rounds are my least favorite part since I’d like to see everyone win, and many of my favorites didn’t make the cut.  However, it was really interesting to see who the coaches matched up for the duets.  Sometimes, the paired singers would be dramatically different, and the resulting duet would be astoundingly creative.  Other times, two very similar singers were paired together.  At first this seemed a little counterintuitive when both singers were exceptionally good.  Why wouldn’t the coach try to keep all of the strongest singers?  But then I realized that it’s easier for a singer to stand out and shine if they’re different from the others.  It’s ironic that “ordinary people” can band together and, by each contributing to the whole, can become extraordinary, while extraordinary people somehow become ordinary when clumped together in a group.  So a coach’s team would actually be stronger if each singer had their own unique style. 

Some of the duet performances were truly amazing. The coaches did an incredible job of picking songs where both singers had the opportunity to showcase their particular abilities.  It was also interesting, and sometimes surprising, to see which singers were able to take advantage of all the coaching and advice they got and really step up their performances.  Even those who didn’t move on to the next level benefited from the personalized coaching and advice they received, and most of them recognized this and expressed their appreciation for it.

With the battle rounds now over, next comes the “live performances,” which will combine ratings from the coaches with audience votes to determine which singers advance from the quarter-finals to the semi-finals and then to the finals.  Each coach will have one singer left to compete in the finals, and I believe the audience alone determines the ultimate winner of “The Voice.”  But all the singers who reach this stage are winners.  The weeks of coaching they receive to improve their performance and artistry is unbelievably valuable, and the friendships and connections they make in the music world are priceless.  The coaches are also winners.  It is, of course, a great opportunity for them to showcase and share their obvious talent and passion for music, but what has impressed me the most is their genuine caring and commitment to helping all the singers on their teams.  With so many winners on the show and so many winning performances to enjoy, “The Voice” can’t help but be a winner, and it’s well worth the time spent watching it for anyone who enjoys music.

If you haven’t been following the show and want to catch up on what has happened so far, you can watch all the previous episodes from the current season at The Voice.  You can also find various interviews, bonus features, and a clearer summary of the three different stages of the show on this website.

Review of the film The Tree of Life – Directed by Terence Malick

by Sharon Tillotson

I recently strolled past the marquee of our neighbourhood theatre and noticed the film The Tree of Life was playing. I love this theatre; it has one screen and is located underground. It does not normally, however, show underground films. Instead it mostly plays mainstream movies once their first run in major theatres has completed. The King’s Speech and Bridesmaids both recently ran there.

I tripped down the few stairs to the board to have a closer look. Not much information, just a series of bright vignettes that didn’t seem to fit together in any meaningful way. When I got home I visited the website. The same series of pictures came up, along with a tiny invitation to enter. I entered.  Inside was a baby’s foot and two arrows, one pointing to ‘The Father’s Way’ and one to the mother’s. More images, and, to be fair to both parties, 599 ‘comments’ (all positive of course) on the film for each parent. At the bottom lay a small invitation to view the official movie site. Strange, I thought I was at the official movie site.

My suspicions were realized when I accepted the invitation. All those same ambiguous images and secret entrances, and not much more. It was clearly an art film. I often attend art films. I probably enjoy about three quarters of them and thought this one might be worth exploring. After all, it starred Brad Pitt and Sean Penn and seemed to suggest it was about the ‘meaning of life’. I discovered it had won the Palme d’Or award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Right up there with The Pianist, The Piano… and Pulp Fiction.

I convinced my daughter to see it with me. We weren’t able to go the week I noticed the film on the marquee, but instead opted to see it the following week when it was running as a matinee. On a lovely Saturday afternoon we descended the many steps about five minutes before the start, as the theatre never tends to be full, even for successful movies. Imagine our surprise when we stepped from the lobby, our hands full of popcorn and drinks, into the darkened viewing area – and the seats were almost all taken. However, we were able to find two pretty good seats.

I understood the parts of the film all right. The movie begins with some of the images I had seen on the board and website, plus a few animated squishy things oozing out of the oceans; an eye or two that was probably depicting the eye of God; the Milky Way; and many other things which taken together were easily enough identifiable as the expansion of the Universe and origins of Life – in a psychedelic sort of way that went on for what felt like more days than the Bible suggests God would have taken.  

The middle part was a sepia-type depiction of an unfulfilled engineer (Brad Pitt) in the 1950’s who was trying to do the right thing by his family, while squashing his own creative dreams. I enjoyed that part. It was evocative and heartbreaking and set up the conflict of his eldest son in the future.

Alas, poor Sean Penn as that eldest son got short-shrift. We see him in the present, in jarring images interspersed with the rest of the story, of a middle-aged man following in the footsteps of his father. Clearly equally unfulfilled, he works as an architect in a glass and steel high-rise in a big city. We hear his fragmented whispers of existential questions. He steps outside to some Godforsaken treeless landscape and climbs a boulder-strewn path to a door that is just standing there with no obvious support. Eventually he steps through the door and is reunited on a beach with his family – in the same idyllic time period of the 1950’s.

Not a bad concept. It could have been a glorious film. So what went wrong? As a friend posted to her Facebook page, I was never engaged in the story. It was fragmented in the extreme. I have since read that it took many years to complete and kept losing its backing and distribution rights. I’m not surprised. Frankly, I could not comprehend the reason for the film. I appreciate movies that make one think. I understand and celebrate that everyone must come to their own understanding of the meaning of Life, and that sometimes one finds hidden meanings within a good book or film which help us see our own ‘truth’. This was not such a film. It left this viewer wanting to forget she’d ever seen it. The Guardian quoted Penn himself as saying in an interview with Le Figaro, “The screenplay is the most magnificent one that I’ve ever read but I couldn’t find that same emotion on screen,” he said. “A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact…”

I know others must have enjoyed the film. As mentioned previously, the theatre was uncommonly full and I did not see even one person get up and leave before the end. Perhaps like me, they were expecting something meaningful to come from it, eventually. Perhaps those who are the kind of person who feels life needs be a hopeless struggle would have engaged with the film. But my own understanding of the concept of The Tree of Life is one of Love; ever growing, ever evolving, ever thriving.

Two weeks or so on, it still leaves me wondering if there was something I missed…