The Best Exotic Margold Hotel (2012)

Films based on multiple story lines work if all the character arcs achieve a satisfactory result.  One weak character can unravel the film like a pulled thread from a sweater.   This is why ensemble films like these are rarely done.  In this cast every character and storyline is perfectly fitted together in a rewarding story about rebirth.  A group of English move to a hotel in India to change their lives.  Judi Dench (the film's central figure) is a widower. Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilson are a financially ruined married couple.  Tom Wilkinson is a lawyer returning to find a lost love.  Maggie Smith is the racist old lady needing a hip replacement.  Ronald Pickup and Celia Imrie are searching for spouses.  And then there's Dev Patel the part owner and manager of the hotel they're all staying at who is desperate to prove himself to his mother.  All of these criss-crossing story lines work and achieve a comic yet inspiring celebration of life in all its glory.  Grade: A-