The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel A group of British retirees travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel. Less luxurious than its advertisements, they are forever transformed by their shared experiences, discovering that life and love can begin again when you begin let go of the past. From the director of Shakespeare in Love and featuring an all-star British cast, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a charming, life-affirming comedy drama about life, love and new beginnings… Slumdog Millionaire This Mumbai-set, rags-to-possible riches tale, co-directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan, was the winner of eight Oscars at the 2009 Academy Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is an 18-year-old street kid from the slums of Mumbai. So what is he doing appearing on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? How can a young man from his background of poverty have acquired the knowledge to be only one correct answer away from winning 20 million rupees? With only one more question to be asked, however, the dream turns to nightmare. As the hooter sounds to signal the end of the show, Jamal is arrested and accused of cheating. No-one can believe that he could really know all of the answers he has given. As Jamal tells the story of his life to the police, the reasons for his success begin to appear. Will Jamal be freed to hear the final question and, if so, will he know the answer? The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Some of the finest actors in England lend their formidable talents to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a charming fish-out-of-water yarn. The Brits, who include Evelyn (Judi Dench), Muriel (Maggie Smith), Douglas (Bill Nighy), and Graham (Tom Wilkinson), are planning retirement in a less expensive country. After "thorough research on the Internet," the group chooses what looks to be a grand, peaceful retreat, the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It turns out that the bloom is off this marigold--it's shabby, antiquated, and as chaotic as the city in India, Jaipur, where it is set. Who can adapt to this very different retirement experience, and who founders? That question lies at the heart of the plot of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The cast is uniformly superb, as the retirees bond and bicker and fall out and then try to encourage one another. And Dev Patel ( Slumdog Millionaire) shines as Sonny, the barely-holding-it-together Marigold Hotel manager. Patel and Tena Desae, who plays Sunaina, his girlfriend, are charming yet face adaptation struggles of their own, in a modern-day India still tied strongly to its traditions but rapidly charging into the future. And the young Indians also seem to represent the energetic future, as the Brits represent the old world that's fast falling. At its heart, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, deftly directed by John Madden, is an uplifting journey, allowing the viewer to feel what the retirees are discovering on the screen. When Evelyn sighs, "Nothing here has worked out quite as I expected," Muriel crisply replies, "Most things don't. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff." The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is most definitely the good stuff. --A.T. Hurley Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle ( Sunshine) directed this wildly energetic, Dickensian drama about the desultory life and times of an Indian boy whose bleak, formative experiences lead to an appearance on his country's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Jamal (played as a young man by Dev Patel) and his brother are orphaned as children, raising themselves in various slums and crime-ridden neighorhoods and falling in, for a while, with a monstrous gang exploiting children as beggars and prostitutes. Driven by his love for Latika (Freida Pinto), Jamal, while a teen, later goes on a journey to rescue her from the gang's clutches, only to lose her again to another oppressive fate as the lover of a notorious gangster. Running parallel with this dark yet irresistible adventure, told in flashback vignettes, is the almost inexplicable sight of Jamal winning every challenge on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, a strong showing that leads to a vicious police interrogation. As Jamal explains how he knows the answer to every question on the show as the result of harsh events in his knockabout life, the chaos of his existence gains shape, perspective and soulfulness. The film's violence is offset by a mesmerising exotica shot and edited with a great whoosh of vitality. Boyle successfully sells the story's most unlikely elements with nods to literary and cinematic conventions that touch an audience's heart more than its head. --Tom Keogh