The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Movies Reviewed

Armchair travellers will love the journey as we join seven British senior citizens and travel to India in search of a new, less expensive life in Jaipur. This gentle comedy or drama movie is based on the novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel masterfully brings together an ensemble cast that includes Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, Dev Patel and Celia Imrie.We thought every one of the characters was brilliantly cast and played.

Travel with us into the colorful, teeming world that is India via The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movie and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Click here to learn more about The Bext Exotic Marigold Hotel on Amazon.

This movie trailer for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel gives you a peek into the main characters, their personalities and their experiences in India.

The movie actually was filmed in India and, in this short video, the stars talk about how they experienced the life of India, how huge and complicated the country is, how India is an extreme combination of both beauty and poverty and of how the term Culture Shock may actually have been coined for that country. Judi Dench closes by saying that, once you go to India, you will never be the same, which we expect is very true.

• CAST: Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton
• RATED: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• STUDIO: 20th Century Fox
• ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: May 25, 2012
• DVD RELEASE DATE: September 18, 2012
• RUN TIME: 124 minutes
• BASED ON: Novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach

The New York Times calls The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel an unexpected hit. They state that this movie cost (just) $10 million to make and has ticket sales approaching $100 million. Those sales, it says, make it "this year's top-selling specialty movie, passing another solid performer, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen." We don't know about the financial aspect (although those statistics sound good,) However, we do know that the theatre was, to the surprise of many, PACKED, which is definitely one sign of a good movie. And you have to love it when a movie with a strong ensemble cast is a success because that is not always the case.

The Movie Mom says, "seeing the impeccable performances of this magnificent cast is reason enough to see the film." We agree that cast is enough reason to make us want to see the movie as a matter of fact, Judi Dench was a large part of the reason we went to see it. Knowing the fact that they were truly impressive should be enough to make you to want to see it, too. By the way, the Movie Mom gives the movie a score of B+.

Finally, Roger Ebert calls The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel "a charming, funny and heartwarming movie, a smoothly crafted entertainment that makes good use of seven superb veterans." We agree. Everything in this movie flowed together beautifully.

We enjoyed The Exotic Marigold Hotel. It is a quietly beautiful movie with numerous humorous moments, a few unexpected twists and a lovely, affordable trip to India. It is rated PG-13 for sexual content and language. Not appropriate nor really of interest to children but definitely of interest to male and female viewers.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movie arrived in theatres on March 6, 2015. It features, once again, a well-respected all-star cast that includes Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, David Strathairn and Richard Gere. I've just returned from watching it with friends and once again, I enjoyed my armchair trip to India. Here are the two trailers, one at just over a minute and a half, the other at two minutes:

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as I said earlier, is a gentle comedy or drama film. It is really a travel movie about India and life and yes, even aging. It has romance but I would not really call it a romance movie and it really is funny. The experts are saying that this movie fills a void in the movie market. It is a good, solid story for people who are looking for something a little bit different than the typical blockbuster movie and personally, I do hope there will be more like it.

How about you? Will you be seeing The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? If you have already seen it, would you recommend it to a friend?