One could think of a pamphlet to limit colonialist makeup in fable social first but Indian Palace is in reality something quite different. John Madden (which has nothing to do with the former coach of american football, of course), performs here a film flavour at once extremely british and pretty darn intimidating. Surrounded by a distribution of first order for the key English with a still truculent and excellent Maggie Smith, his sidekick of Downton Abbey Penelope Wilton and, especially, distinguished, and poignant , Bill Nighy and Judy Dench, he confronts in his adaptation of the novel, These Small Things by Deborah Moggach (2004) retired English now fairly broke and fairly “grey” to the exuberance of India fantasy, colorful, young… and it also broke in fact.
This exuberance is well illustrated by the character of Sonny played by the brilliant Dev Patel (british also revealed in Slumdog Millionaire and then the excellent series The Newsroom), who conducts the hotel prestigieusement ramshackle where are going to live our retired expats, and that’s going to try in spite of its financial instability to accept his romance with Sunaina, played by Tina Desai (that one has since been able to review in the series of the Wachowski Sense8).
“INDIAN PALACE combines the feel-good movie and the story is melancholic so stylish and intimidating.”
A lot of fun moments scattered throughout the film, playing on the clash of cultures, dialogues for situations or comedy more classic in terms of exaggeration or absurdity, but a certain melancholy that remains present throughout of’Indian Palace, like the aftertaste of bitter-sweet. The fate of each of the retirees as the relations between them are extremely touching (Bill Nighy, Judy Dench and Penelope Wilton are brilliant on this aspect !).
Indian Palace combines the feel-good movie and the story is melancholic so stylish and intimidating. Playing on several registers, the distribution oscillates between the two performances and the young actors do déméritent not face the old timers who cabotinent sometimes but remain perfectly in their registry in a film that is colorful and as soft as a souvenir of holidays which is falling on an old photo album…
Eric
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