I liked the first film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, pretty well, and watched it last night again because Barbara had never seen it.  Today we saw the sequel, which, like most sequels, just isn’t quite up to the level of the original.  It helps that the director, screenwriter and entirety of the cast has returned four years later (though just eight months in movie time), and it’s nice that a movie like this employs a number of older actors and actresses, who otherwise might not be fielding many offers.  Those actors include Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup, Penelope Wilton, Diana Hardcastle and two Americans, Richard Gere and David Strathairn.

John Madden’s sequel has the hotel “for the elderly and beautiful” in Jaipur doing well enough that Sonny (Dev Patel) wants to expand.  A deal with American backers is in the works, prepared by Sonny and Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith), but its success depends on an incognito visit by an inspector for the potential backers.  Sonny spends too much time worrying about this instead of his upcoming nuptials to the beautiful Sunaina (Tina Desae), and everyone suffers because of it — including the viewers. Meanwhile, the six remaining elderly British hotel guests find jobs and romance to keep them busy in their golden years, yet not without some conflict or sadness.

When Madden keeps the focus on the guests, the film flows smoothly because we have grown to care about them.  But when Sonny is the focus, his obstreperousness is irritating rather than endearing.  And when the truth about the inspector is finally revealed, the film staggers to a halt for a while until it regains its momentum for the big wedding sequence.  This colorful, musical sequence should send viewers off with happy feelings, but it is intercut with a character’s melancholy portents about death.

It isn’t a bad film, but it is a disappointment.  The things I see as flaws were staged deliberately by the writer and director, so they must believe those elements help the film, but I do not agree.  It is a movie after all, and the ending should make viewers glad they came, not send them away with despondency.  Anyway, I’m glad that films like this exist which depict the lives of older folk with respect.  Not every movie needs to be made for teenagers; someday those teenagers will grow old, and find themselves resembling some of the elderly folk living out their lives in places like the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  8 March 2015.