The story opens on Sonny (Dev Patel) cruising down a highway in San Diego with Mrs. Donnelly (Maggie Smith) and all at once the audience chuckles. They’re en route to a hotel tycoon (David Strathairn) who heads up Evergreen properties. They want to convince him to finance their expansion. Yet despite Patel’s boyish energy and naïve determination, it’s Maggie Smith who commands the stage, complaining of her tepid tea. She seems to step with surreal power from “Downton’s” Dame to Marigold’s mistress.
Back at the ranch….or the Marigold Hotel of India….the gang is all there. Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and all the old-timers we loved from the first film with the welcome addition of (Guy Chambers) Richard Gere as a novelist/inspector….the man that Evergreen has possibly sent to investigate the property. Of course Gere gets more than he bargained for as a new plot develops, as well as a new hotel – the Supreme Hotel. But that’s the problem with the majority of the story. There’s a lot of little plots, all very one-dimensional, a lot of chaos, predictable and colorful (even the studio sapping up the opportunity to create a mini ‘Slumdog’ moment through a dance routine). Yet, it still has a spark. In the moments when it simmers down, we reflect on life, and think that one day those old-timers will be us. A though-provoking little hotel story. ♚♛1/2