The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I have just watched this warm, fun movie, about a group of retired Brits who decide for various reasons to move to India for their old age - to the "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". It has some humorous, and poignant, observations about moving to another culture as well as many very funny lines. Also some beautiful, noisy and colourful scenes of Indian street life. From my very brief trip to India in 2007 for CV Mathews' enthronement, I second that India is "an assault on all the senses," that the comment of one character, "All life is here" is true, and also that the hair-raising shot of an overtaking bus honking and swishing across into its own lane just in time is all too authentic - the driving was noisier and more frightening by far than in Uganda.

It is a comedy, and it has some fairly ridiculous incidents and probably a lot of cliches. But, I enjoyed it very much and I totally recommend it. The most obvious observation on moving into a new culture is the truism that, the more you put into a thing, the more you get out of it. The characters who ventured out into the streets and markets and then into the lives and finally homes of Indian friends, were the ones who came to love it the most and made the best new life in India.  Another point made simply but well was that you must, must show respect toward and interest in people; and when you are invited into someone's home and are not sure what is expected, just be considerate, and real. Just as you would with a new friend of your own culture, in fact. A more insightful observation came across more subtly: early on the narrator described the group as "adapting to new ways and new habits like Darwin's finches"; but towards the end of the film she says, "Perhaps we were foolish to think we could adapt at our ages. We are too stuck in our ways." Early on in transition to a new culture, you can think that you are making fantastic progress, you know so much already, and you are adjusting brilliantly to the new life. But as you go along, you find out more and more how deep culture goes, both for you and for those you now live among, and you find out just how much you do not know and will probably will never know or completely understand. The challenge becomes greater and harder the longer you stay. That is my belief. Doesn't mean you shouldn't keep at it, keep learning - but you have to be humble, and very patient about it!

Two very amusing lines: when one of the wives is annoyed with her husband, she says to him: "When I want your opinion I'll give it to you." And the one that appears in the trailer, - "In India we have a saying, everything will be all right in the end. So if everything is not all right, it means it is not the end yet." Good one. I do recommend this film for a fun and feel-good couple of hours set in another bright and sunny country.