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 The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel renews our acquaintance
with a guest list of fading Brit retirees whose lust for life is
reinvigorated by the fresh and unpredictable environment they
find themselves cast into.
Holder of the unofficial title of Britain's favorite actress
since well before she turned 80 in December, Dench plays Evelyn,
a widow who ends up running a business in her new home.
The film offers a mix of Indian and British themes, laced with
hints of British comedy classics like Fawlty Towers and One Foot
in the Grave and dominated by the rough-edged characters played
by Dench and fellow octogenarian Oscar winner Maggie Smith.
Their experiences are worlds away from the grim, one-dimensional
fate Dench says awaits many Britons as care home residents.
"I always think that our system over here is the wrong one," she
told Reuters. "When you go in and you see people just sitting,
you think there is no stimulus.
"It is interaction with people that stimulates us. To put all
these people in a room, where maybe the television might be on
but half of them may not even be able to see it. That's wrong."
She has ridden out problems with deteriorating eyesight and says
she has much more work in her yet.
"I'm fine, once I know where everything is," she said. "At home
I know where all the steps are. I wouldn't be good going into a
darkened room, like in a cinema where I can't see where the
steps are, so I get someone to be with me."
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Dench made her professional stage debut in the 1950s, and for much
of her career as a leading light of Shakespearean theater, she and
husband Michael Williams ran a household that included her daughter
and three of their four parents.
"Sometimes it wasn't easy but it is worth it. Even the thing of one
complaining about the other, it's something, it's a life, it's
something to get heated up about and not just sit in a chair."
She sees threads of such multi-generational living running through
the Indian backdrop to the new film and says Britain has something
to learn from communities "where the family is all kept together,
where there is a family unit".
"As a society we are still a bit cold," Dench said.
"It's just the thing of stimulus I think. I'm such an advocate for
not stopping, just going on and being challenged. I long to do
...the sort of things that I haven't done before. And I will."
(Writing by Patrick Graham; editing by John Stonestreet)
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