Hope, Courage & Other Reasons to See "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"

"You can have anything you want; just stop waiting for somebody to tell you that you deserve it." 

This lesson and several others hit me where I needed to be touched last night. I sat in the middle section of an intimate theater housed within the walls of the historic Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) accompanied by a friend. My friend—a rather new and more than welcomed acquaintance—is a bit of an adventurer like myself. Naturally artistic and imaginative, he too has a genuine interest in traveling the world and connecting with the globe’s many citizens.

My assumption was that the film would only massage our curiosity in traveling to India and indeed this was true, but it did more than just that. The film woke me up a bit last night, reminding me of the difference between waking up each day and going about life in a routine fashion, taking steps as they seem to logically fall into place and actually living…

The characters—all different and unique in their experiences and motivations—pulled at the varying parts of who I am as a young adult with many ambitions. I saw in the characters my own fear, conformity, courage, flexibility, open-mindedness, wit, comfort with discomfort, fascination, love, loyalty, regret, lust, loneliness, joy, peace, sorrow and guilt.

On the surface of things one may find themselves at a total loss in their efforts to explain how I—a 25 year old Black male residing in Crown Heights, Brooklyn—connect with these old, White, British retirees when really the whole thing is quite simple. The stories and lives of the main characters of this film are absolutely universal, underscoring lessons and tokens of wisdom that can resonate with us all. I was both in awe and awfully inspired. Compliments to the cast, the writers, the director and any and all of us who are daring enough to see this film and think about what it is that we want out of our own lives.