This historically-based tale of the invention of the sex-toy vibrator speaks well to the current issue of women controlling their own bodies, but it’s a one-trick-pony movie.
A talented cast, mostly playing characters much older than
the standard movie demographic, gives honor to old age, but the several plotlines
diffuse the experience.
The
common element in our two movies under consideration here are age—in the case
of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel the
age of most of the protagonists and their coming-of-old-age realizations about
themselves and in the case of Hysteria
an older historical age, the later 19th century, with its deluded
ideas about women’s sexuality that conflated lack of understanding, repression,
patriarchy, and medical disorder.
Triumphs over social expectations occur in both stories, to the delight of the
audiences that I viewed each one with, although neither moves much beyond its obvious primary message. Beginning chronologically with Hysteria, we find ourselves in 1880 with Tanya Wexler’s (good to
see a woman directing anything from the studio system but especially a topic
such as this) Dr. Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) much distressed with the
awful situation in London of physicians refusing to acknowledge the latest
discoveries of medical science thereby harming more than helping their patients
with the continued use of unwashed hands (“Germ theory is poppycock”), rotting
bandages, leeches, bloodletting, etc. (an effective visual locates an hospital
right next to a coffin shop). Granville's refusal to compromise his professional ethics, along with disgust at the snake-oil
remedies being peddled as medicine, soon lead to his virtual blackballed status
(reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman’s over-meticulous, unemployable actor Michael
Dorsey in Tootsie [Sydney Pollack,
1982]) until he happens upon Dr. Robert Dalrymple’s (Jonathan Price) practice of
treating “hysterical” women with his “nerve-relieving paroxysm” manipulations
of their private parts, a procedure given no connection to orgasm nor even
pleasure, just relief of an “ailment” impacting half the female population of
the city. (I guess the
“unafflicted” must have been pre-pubescent girls, nuns, and ancestors of my
now-departed older female relatives who seemed to have barely encountered
intercourse let alone non-reproductive sexual contact—now if that remark
doesn’t finally stir up some responses to these reviews I don’t know what could. Bring it on! [Although I do exaggerate for pseudo-controversial effect. Please forgive me, ancestral ghosts.]) Dr. Granville takes easily to his new-found practice,
quickly gaining the admiration of his clients and Dalrymple’s virginal daughter
Emily (Felicity Jones), but he soon finds that the eagerness of the women in
the waiting room is having a drastic effect on his primary instrument—his right
hand—with the ensuing cramps so deleterious to his technique that Dalrymple is
forced to dismiss him. (Out of hand, I guess, if you’ll pardon the pun;
or maybe you could say he develops carpal tunnel syndrome because of the tunneling required by his “medical”
technique … OK, OK, I’ll stop;
please continue reading).
Dalrymple
has essentially dismissed his other daughter, Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal),
from family affairs as well because of her progressive—essentially
socialist—challenges to his staid attitudes so that her suffragette,
settlement-house sensibilities constantly run afoul of both her father and his
new-then-gone associate, Granville.
A reconnection occurs for Granville with both generations of Dalrymples,
though, when his rich inventor friend, Edmund St. John-Symthe (Rupert Everett),
comes up with an electrically-powered feather duster that Granville realizes
can be reconfigured into what we now know as a vibrator (and not the kind
to ease aching shoulders, although they continue to be marketed that way
outside of the more honest merchandizing in sex shops). Granville and Dalrymple are soon in
business again, with more success than ever while Charlotte’s way-station for
the poor is on the verge of collapse because of back debts. All comes to a head (so to speak) when
she attends a fancy ball given by her father, causes a bit of a commotion which
leads to her attempted removal by a policeman, then socks him a good punch when
he refuses to unhand her, all of which lands her in jail and on trial for her
actions which are being presented as the result of “severe hysteria,” a
condition requiring incarceration in a mental institution and forced removal of
her “offending” uterus—the real insanity is that such a misdiagnosis is
standard medical acceptance at the time but it’s even worse (to me, at least)
that such a decision is being made through public courtroom testimony rather than
through private examination. At
this point Granville comes to her defense (literally), speaking for her strong
but sane social convictions (in order to avoid a judicial one; sorry, but the
pun override on my keyboard must be activated today) and his “evolved” (maybe
Granville is somehow related to Pres. Obama’s maternal heritage) medical
decision that the whole “hysteria” concept is the result of hysterical (crazy,
not funny) masculine assumptions about male and female sexual pleasure. His testimony results in her release,
along with his new round of medical-establishment blackballing, but all hums
wonderfully (and electrically) in the end as Granville becomes rich thanks to
the marketing of the massager by Edmund and the realization by Mortimer and
Charlotte that they are the correct Granville-Dalrymple merger, now with resources to minister to the poor.
This
movie is a consistently enjoyable enterprise, with its mix of humor and 21st-century-directed
social commentary which pokes fun at the misguided intentions of men to
determine what’s appropriate for women regarding command of their own bodies
(many of the 1880s’ medical establishmentarians seem to have produced heirs now
running the U.S. House and many statehouses as well, with their
religiously-based campaigns to deny women the choice of access to birth control
or abortion while offering no such objections to erectile-dysfunction drugs for
men) and celebrating the basic human desire of women to enjoy the pleasures of
those bodies in the same manner that men do with theirs. Over the course of the narrative we go
from an opera singer who bursts out in delighted song while trying out the new
device (reminiscent of Madeline Kahn’s “Oh, sweet mystery of life at last I’ve
found you!” response to her encounter with the well-endowed monster [Peter Boyle] in Mel
Brooks’ 1975 Young Frankenstein) to
the finale where Queen Victoria is given one of the new machines, then briefly
shorts out Buckingham Palace's power while giving it a demonstration. However, despite the amusing and
relevant defenses this movie offers for a woman in charge, both in her private
and public lives, the whole experience feels to me like a carefully-calculated
buildup to that long-desired final release (You expected a comment less crass
than that about this movie after the obvious set-up it provides? Go back to the top and start reading
again if so.), a slightly more serious version of a Saturday Night Live skit trying to justify itself as a full-length
experience (in the context of this review, I’ll consign this last pun to the appropriately-titled “No Comment” page of Ms. Magazine).
The
English characters in John Madden’s The
Best Exotic Marigold Hotel haven’t gotten much more than what they’ve initially
been dealt in the game of life either—where it’s perfectly legal to pine for
your true potential without ever finding satisfaction—at least until they all
converge on Jaipur, India where they slowly realize what advantages they do
have as they see that very few Indians have much at all because of the local
sociopolitical realities of a vast, complex, poverty-stricken country where the
few locals we meet are struggling to move upward in various difficult
situations even as our elderly immigrants are struggling to find something more
worthwhile—and affordable—in their final chapters. However, unlike Hysteria,
where the narrative arc seems too direct and pointed at a specific, predictable
outcome, in the Marigold
Hotel there are a plethora of plotlines, a bit too many to juggle to a
clean rather than an imposed conclusion.
The cast is a commendable collection of well-known, well-awarded
thespians who make for a potentially powerful ensemble, although it takes a
good bit of attention at first to keep up with who everyone is and what their
problems are that send them off to England’s former colony for a finale
hopefully more fulfilling than what they anticipate in their home country. Evelyn (Judi Dench) is a new widow
who’s never had to take responsibility for herself because of her
micro-managing former husband so she decides to push herself into scary new
territory, especially because the late Mr. Greenslade also racked up so many
debts that she’s had to sell their home; Graham (Tom Wilkinson) is a High Court
judge so dismayed by the empty pomp of a colleague’s retirement that he
abruptly terminates his own career without fanfare to return to the land of his
youth; grouchy and openly racist Muriel (Maggie Smith) simply wants to travel
to India for a hip replacement because of the vast savings in operation
expenses; Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton) have been married far
too long to be close any more (she tells him “When I want your opinion I’ll give
it to you”) but even though his career has been equally long his pension isn’t
enough for them to live in anything but low-income housing because they’ve
invested too much of their savings into their daughter’s yet-to-stabilize Internet
start-up, yet when they travel Jean resists anything Indian as much as
possible, trying to cling to her mental English habitat; Madge (Celia Imrie)
was intended by her daughter to be a built-in baby sitter for her grandchildren
but she has hopes of finding yet another husband; and Norman (Ronald Pickup—an
appropriate name given his character) is also looking for new romance options
even though his aging body isn’t giving him much support (in all senses of the
word) in those efforts.
As
shown in this photo where all of these strangers (well, the English ones at
least) meet for the first time as they prepare for their overseas flight,
there’s mostly a lot of trepidation as to what they will encounter in a foreign
land that most of them have never visited—Graham is the traveler exception
because India was once well-known to him, while Norman is the adventurer
exception because he’s up for anything (although it takes a little medical
enhancement for him to be truly “up” for what he’s really come for). Most of them don’t know what to
expect—and here we can include Sonny because he’s not really sure what he’s
doing with his somewhat-dysfunctional family property, although he has his own
dreams as evidenced by the Photoshopped illustrations of the hotel he envisions
on his website that has attracted all of these “Elderly and Beautiful” guests
to his accommodations experiment.
Certainly the Englishmen (and women) bring their best attempts at being
“beautiful” (in sprit if not always so much in body) along with their
acknowledged status as elderly, although their age and station in life are not
frequent subjects from an industry usually more interested in the disposable
income of a much younger demographic than mine (64 and counting). I find that some other film critics
(whom I normally wouldn’t reference, but not this time) are more interested in
that younger demographic as well, noting that Associated Press’ Christy Lemire
says of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel:
“Sure, it’ll seem warm and
crowd-pleasing but probably only to crowds of a certain age, who may relate to
those characters who find themselves in flux in their twilight” (http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2012/05/02/review_marigold_hotel_offers_safe_escape/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Movie+news&_r=true). Well, Christy—who’s now on the downhill
slide of life herself at age 40 (I’d never paid much attention one way or the
other to her reviews until I saw a video attack she did on Men in Black3, which I’ll cite in my upcoming review of
that film, and was surprised at how bubbly and snotty she was)—I’ll just say
that while I agree with you on this movie not being as impactful as it
potentially could be, especially with the acting talent giving their best to
each of the diverse roles, I’d like to see how you fare when you reach
“twilight,” Toots, because maybe you’ll be “in flux” by then yourself and
worried about being “old-fashioned, safe and resistant to stray from [your] comfort
zone.” I realize that Lemire is
making these latter comments about the film itself, not the characters within,
but I hope that in her youthful exuberance that she’s not assuming, as she
implies in her first statement above, that only those who are becoming less
socially-relevant than her would be able to relate to the journeys that these
characters have already taken before embarking on what will likely be the last
journey for the older ones in this story.
OK,
enough geezer huffing and puffing; let’s get back to some semblance of an actual
review of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,
which I, if Christy Lemire or anyone else cares, liked but, as with Hysteria, don’t feel quite accomplishes
everything it sets out to do. This is probably because it’s trying to do so much,
especially in exploring the varying strategies through which these English elders find a
sense of self-understanding in the competing spiritual and secular environments
of India but then butting all of those stories up against the problems that
Sonny has with his mother, leading to tense misunderstandings with
Sunaina which must be resolved by a last-minute run through the streets to
rescued romance, far too reminiscent of the climax of Slumdog Millionaire to not seem like plagiarism. But the youngsters aren’t the only
victors in this interwoven tale, as the oldsters get their just desserts
too: Muriel finally opens her
heart to the outcaste hotel maid whose circumstances are more like hers than she’d
realized, then she demonstrates her under-appreciated financial skills to save
the Marigold from new-development destruction; Norman takes up with an ex-pat
Brit who happily joins him in less luxury than she’d been accustomed to as
permanent Marigold residents; unlike Norman's reduced lifestyle, Madge finds a more materially-comfortable
relationship with a local Indian man; Graham dies peacefully from
privately-known heart problems after reconnecting for one night of friendship
with the boy he once loved decades ago, now an old man himself and married to a
woman who quietly lets them be for their brief reunion; Doug finally gets up
the gumption to confront Jean, who returns to England when their daughter’s
business strikes pay dirt leaving him to pursue his new-found fondness for
Evelyn; she, in turn, finds a job at the call-center as a culture-coach to help these
Indian customer-service workers get a better sense of connection to their
overseas clients. While some time
does pass from our opening introductions to all of these folks, most of these resolutions
come within the first weeks of their Indian encounter, which is a bit facile
and conveniently interconnected in a manner that would please the
plot-consciousness of Charles Dickens.
And,
to finish with a comment on renown septa- and sexagenarians, probably more
famous in their own way than even the well-known actors in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I’ll note another cluster of
“characters who find themselves […] in their twilight” but who don’t seem to be
“in flux” at present, the aged but still ageless Beach Boys, currently
celebrating their 50th anniversary in show business with an extensive
U.S. (plus Canadian, even some European venues) tour this spring and summer. Nina and I just saw them last Friday night (May
1) at the equally old and respectable (but don’t forget what Noah Cross [John
Huston] said in Chinatown [Roman
Polanski, 1974]: “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable
if they last long enough”) Greek Theatre (built in 1903, financed by William
Randolph Hearst) at the University of California, Berkeley campus. Just like the old folks in Marigold Hotel, these guys may be past
their prime (and Brian Wilson’s once soaring falsetto voice now needs
supplementation from others in the band) but they’re not out to pasture,
providing an energetic survey of their long musical career in a show that I
encourage everyone, no matter if you’re as young and hip as Christy Lemire or
as old and crusty as me, to see if you can, despite the scalped ticket
cost. Certain old things, such as
the ridiculous “female disease” in Hysteria, need to be swept into the dustbin of history, but others, such as the
resilient spirit of The Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel adventurers and the surfside troubadours of the Wilson-Love
family (along with their neighbors and friends), are still alive and vital even
as the sunset approaches and the full moon rises. They “Do
not go gentle into that good night” (Dylan Thomas, 1951) but instead ride
mopeds, drink wine, make love, and have “Fun, fun, fun until [Big D]addy takes
the T-Bird away.” Now there’s an
ending we should all harmonize with.
If
you’d like to diagnose Hysteria
further there are some suggested links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvNF0sEwTts
(a 16 min. clip in which some NYC women discuss Hysteria
but be aware that you have to get through about 4 min. of opening plugs for the
East Village neighborhood in which the discussion takes place)
If
you’d like to check in for a longer stay with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel here are some suggested links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6freSuGWfkM
(interview with The Best Exotic Marigold
Hotel director John Madden)
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