Latest Marigold Hotel film leaves laughs on life support

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel picks up eight months after the conclusion of the first movie (released in 2011). Sonny (Dev Patel) is struggling to balance care for his elderly hotel patrons with plans for his imminent wedding and the expansion of his hotel business in Jaipur, India. Kudos, I suppose, to the producers for lowering the film’s rating to PG (for some language and suggestive comments), but many moviegoers will struggle to care for any character in this carnal-cuckoo camp.

Each Marigold denizen seems to be working from the same one-item bucket list. Sonny’s mother, Mrs. Kapoor, has a one-night stand with a mysterious guest, Guy (Richard Gere), who may or may not be an undercover inspector. Norman discovers his live-in girlfriend, Carol, carries on dalliances at another hotel. Douglas (who separated from his wife, Jean, at the end of the first movie) and Evelyn (Judi Dench) are beginning to hit it off when Jean returns from England. Madge keeps company with several lovers and weighs marriage proposals from her two favorites. And the hotel’s lone young guest, Lavinia, romances Sonny’s business rival, Kushal, who himself might be making a play for Sonny’s fiancée, Sunaina. All these shenanigans transpire—with nary a hint of irony—as the film journeys through Sonny and Sunaina’s engagement party, the meeting of their families, and culminates in their elaborate wedding ceremony. Toasting the newlyweds, Douglas sums up two films’ worth of foolishness (to a young married couple, no less): “How many new lives can we have? As many as we can. Until we can’t.”

The film’s warmth and tenderness are confined to the cinematography and soundtrack. If there was an emergency defibrillator on set, it should have been patched to the screenplay: The film’s chuckle-meter barely flickers right of zero. (Sonny reacts with surprise to young Lavinia’s arrival: “You are nearer the menopause than the mortuary!”) Watch any random two-hour block of daytime soap (The Old and the Restless?) for the same ration of bromidic drama. (Mrs. Kapoor to Guy after their tryst: “You were the first since my husband died.” Guy: “You weren’t my first, but you could be the last.”) It would take a superhuman reservoir of charity to empathize with any in the warren of randy retirees.

Just before the credits roll, one Marigolder intones: “There is no such thing as an ending, just a place you leave the story.” With any luck, Fox Searchlight Pictures will do just that.