Good guests: 'Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'

Even the finest actors in the world generally can't save a silly script -- unless, that is, they're actually, literally the finest actors in the world.

"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" certainly has quite a few. Some are British veterans who won't be familiar to Americans, while the others are famous names attached to titles like "Dame" and "OBE." The movie itself is a mawkish comedy-drama-romance, but the astounding cast makes it feel like a night on the West End.

For starters there's Judi Dench, playing not a queen but a cash-strapped widow, Evelyn, one of several seniors whose golden years seem somehow tarnished. Tom Wilkinson is Graham, a high-court judge with a secret; Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton are Douglas and Jean, whose savings have disappeared in a floundering Internet start-up; Celia Imrie plays Madge, a gold digger still honing her pick; Ronald Pickup is Norman, a skirt-chaser refusing to slow down.

They'll converge, as ensemble casts are wont to do, in one place: the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, advertised as a home "for the elderly and beautiful" in Darpur, India. What follows is a collection of back stories and new developments, some more convincing than others. Nighy, Wilton and Dench form a triangle of sorts that could almost carry a one-act play, while Maggie Smith is so good as Muriel, a cantankerous racist, that she pulls off what should be a highly unconvincing epiphany. Even Dev Patel ("Slumdog Millionaire"), as the hotel's ever-optimistic manager, prevents his chattering role from tipping into caricature.

Ably directed by John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") and based on a novel by Deborah Moggach, "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" has all the weaknesses of its genre, particularly the tied-in-a-bow ending. But with a cast like this, it's hard to argue.PLOT Seven British seniors uproot themselves to live in an Indian retirement home.

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